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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280267">don't it beat a slow dance to death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitarydreaming/pseuds/solitarydreaming'>solitarydreaming</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Humor, Enemies to Lovers, I just took the concept and ran with it, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Russian Doll AU but in the vaguest sense, Time Loop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:28:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>95,888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24280267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitarydreaming/pseuds/solitarydreaming</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam gets trapped in a time loop with a morbid twist and finds an unlikely ally in Ronan Lynch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>840</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All the warnings that would apply to these two in canon also apply here. Also, there's a lot of major character death but it's temporary and (mostly) all in good humour</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>Adam comes to, dizzy and vaguely confused. He’s lying on a bed that’s not his in a room he doesn’t recognize, and there’s a strange girl (drunk? definitely drunk) hovering over him, plastic cup in one hand and cellphone in the other. She leans down, cellphone hand outstretched, but stumbles a little. Liquid sloshes over the rim of the cup and spills right onto him. He sits up and shifts out of the line of fire.</p><p>“Hey, you’re awake,” the girl slurs. “You were passed out. Like realpassed out. I thought you’d took something, y’know?”</p><p>“I’m good. Uh, thanks.”</p><p>The drunk girl says something but she’s mumbling too much for Adam to make the words out. She looks him over and, seemingly concluding he’s not in desperate need of CPR, stumbles out of the room. Pop music wafts in from beyond the door. ABBA? No, wait, Madonna. God, where <em>is</em> he?</p><p>He tries to get his bearings. He’s got a splitting headache and his muscles ache as if he’s just come home from a 5-hour stint at the gym. There’s a faint sense of jitteriness to him, too; remnants from a bad dream his mind’s forgotten, even if his body hasn’t. Outside, the music gets louder. He looks around. His eyes catch on a mint plant perched on the windowsill.</p><p>Gansey’s. He’s in Gansey’s room.</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p>Adam pats his pockets down, finds the shitty flip phone that he’s usually too embarrassed to bring out in public. He ignores the various missed calls from that number he knows all too well and checks the time, as if he doesn’t already know what he’ll see. Sure enough, it’s almost nine. Gansey should’ve woken him up hours ago. He <em>knows </em>he told Gansey to wake him up before the party kicked off.</p><p>Adam climbs to his feet and goes crashing head-first into the fray. The party’s in full swing now, faces both familiar and not shooting him questioning looks as he shoves his way through the crowds. He knows there’s something a little frantic about his movements but he doesn’t care. He has to find Gansey before this situation gets any more humiliating than it already is.</p><p>He makes it to the living room without any sight of Gansey. It’s loud and packed with bodies. Swaying, cackling, drunken bodies, the stuff of nightmares. The whole room reeks, some foul triple combo of booze-sweat-weed that’s so unlike Gansey it’s laughable. Surely this can’t be Gansey’s apartment. Surely Richard Campbell Gansey III, princely and dignified even in his worst moments, wouldn’t be caught dead at a scene like this. What the fuck happened while he was out?</p><p>There’s a group of guys Adam remembers from his psychology class last semester huddled around the TV in the corner of the room, controllers in hand, yelling obscenities at the screen. A handful of girls that he can only assume are bored dates hover nearby.</p><p>At the breakfast bar (which is, unsurprisingly, littered with drinks) Gansey’s girlfriend, Blue, is locked in a seemingly heated debate with Brad from economics. Judging from the half-glazed expression on Brad’s face, whatever salient point Blue’s making has flown right over his head. Adam gives them a wide berth, only to walk right into a girl he vaguely recognizes from his dorm floor. She glowers at him as he apologizes and then pushes past him, meeting up with a gaggle of dancing drunks that he swears he’s seen around but could not name if held at gunpoint. Jesus. Is Gansey friends with every last student on campus?</p><p>“Yo, Parrishman!”</p><p>Adam looks up and finds Henry Cheng, one of Gansey’s closest friends, waving at him from across the room. His arms are adorned with neon wristbands like he’s flown in from a street rave, and he’s messing around with a phone plugged into a set of speakers that Adam’s never seen in the apartment before in his life. Suddenly the music choices make a lot more sense. In fact, this might be the only thing that makes sense.</p><p>“Have you seen Gansey anywhere?” he asks.</p><p>“Ah, now that <em>is</em> the question.”</p><p>“That wasn’t a yes or a no.”</p><p>“Always to the point, Parrish. I admire that about you.”</p><p>Adam scoffs. The list of qualities Henry’s claimed to admire in him over the last few months has been fairly excessive and includes everything from “possesses a great degree of common sense” to “has good genes,” which is just about the most ironic thing Adam’s ever heard. It’s the simplest method of deducing how drunk Henry is at any given moment. Right now he’s ranking at a solid 5.</p><p>“Henry. Please. Have you seen him or not?”</p><p>“Let’s just say I may hold some knowledge on where the man of the hour is hiding, and I would impart it with you if I did not fully believe you were better off not knowing.”</p><p>“Nothing you just said makes one bit of sense, you realize that?”</p><p>“To be the bearer of forbidden truths is a double-edged sword.”</p><p>“Forget it. I’ll ask Blue.”</p><p>“Try Ronan’s room,” he says immediately, “but do not blame me for what you might find.”</p><p>“If this is you implying that Gansey’s cheating on his girlfriend with his roommate, just know I don’t buy it.”</p><p>“Good god! I hope not,” Henry says, aghast. “If our beloved Gansey were to engage in same-sex experimentation, I like to think his tastes would run a little more refined. Take myself, for instance. A fine specimen of a man. Or you, I suppose, if I was otherwise engaged. You know, you have a number of qualities I admire in a–”</p><p>“I’m gonna stop you there,” Adam says. “Before this gets weird.”</p><p>“I have no objections to things becoming a little weird.”</p><p>“Thanks for the help, Cheng.”</p><p>“Brace yourself, Parrish,” Henry calls out as Adam walks away. “You are walking into the throes of hell!”</p><p>Adam manoeuvres his way back into the hallway, bypasses the couple making out on the floor, and pauses outside Ronan’s bedroom door. He can hear Gansey talking, but what he’s saying is a mystery. Is it worth knocking? Should he wait for them to come out?</p><p>There’s a raised voice from inside. He sees what Henry means now.</p><p>The door flies open two minutes later and out storms Ronan Lynch. He looks to be dressed more for a grunge gig than a birthday party, which is to say, he looks the same as always: sharp, savagely handsome, and scowling Adam’s way.</p><p>Adam allows himself a millisecond’s worth of disappointment before training his gaze on a focal point beyond Ronan’s head. He’s used to this shit by now. It shouldn’t sting. Ronan hates him, and he has done from the minute he laid eyes on him from the passenger seat of Gansey’s Camaro. It’s been three months of incisive barbs and outright contempt, of loaded questions about Adam’s background, his origins, as if they don’t all know fine well that Adam isn’t one of them. Gansey might pretend not to see it but it’s not exactly hard to pick up on. One look at Adam’s second-hand clothes and abomination of a phone usually does the trick.</p><p>Really, it’s not like Adam’s all that fond of Ronan either. He’s the worst kind of asshole, as privileged as he is lazy. Ronan could have anything, he could be anyone, but he tries for nothing. Adam’s torn between jealousy and resentment.</p><p>“The fuck you standing there for, you creepy bastard? The party’s that way.”</p><p>He opens his mouth to snap something back but Ronan’s already shoving his way past him, shouting profanely at the couple on the floor. They break apart immediately. It would be funny if anyone else were responsible.</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p>Adam turns back around. Gansey’s hovering in the doorway, looking as bright-eyed and regal as ever. You wouldn’t know he’d just been arguing with Ronan. Even Adam does a double take, questions if it was really an argument at all.</p><p>“Sorry to interrupt,” Adam says.</p><p>“Nonsense! I’m awfully sorry about the noise. Did it wake you up?”</p><p>“Oh. No. It’s fine. I mean, you should’ve just woke me up yourself. I didn’t wanna crash your party like this.”</p><p>“No such thing as crashing a party you’re a guest at.”</p><p>“That’s not the point.” Although it was a little. “I told you I’d have helped set everything up.”</p><p>“Blue and Henry had it all under control, trust me. You were tired.”</p><p>“I would’ve been fine.”</p><p>“Adam.” And now Gansey’s giving him that look, the one Adam’s starting to dislike, like he’s a sick puppy Gansey picked up off the street that’s now refusing to take its medicine. “You were dead on your feet. You needed the rest. No harm done.”</p><p>Shame and indignation war furiously inside his gut. There’s going to Harvard and there’s paying for Harvard, and neither of those tasks leaves much room for anything else. But Gansey’s not supposed to<em> know </em>about that. He might be able to tell that Adam’s poor but he’s not supposed to know just how poor, that it’s trailer trash poor, struggling despite the scholarship poor, skipping dinner to pay for textbooks poor. He’s definitely not supposed to know that Adam’s barely sleeping, that he barely has the time for sleep in his horrific schedule.</p><p>Most importantly though, and most crucial to their fledgling friendship: he’s not supposed to comment on it. Ever. Adam didn’t claw his way into an ivy just to become the pet project of some old money rich kid with a philanthropic streak.</p><p>“I would’ve survived a few extra hours,” he says, tone as even as he can manage. <em>It’s Gansey’s birthday party, you can’t ruin this, he’s the only friend you have, don’t ruin this by being you.</em></p><p>“I’m not sure you–”</p><p>“Gansey,” <em>don’t ruin this</em>, “look, I know my limits, okay? And I’m sorry for taking your room over. Next time you can kick me out.” He manages a weak smile,<em> see it’s all good, we’re good.</em></p><p>“You’re right. Of course.” Gansey smiles back, although Adam’s not so sure he believes in its authenticity. “I better get back to the party. You coming with?”</p><p>“Sure,” he says, as if it’s not the last thing he wants to do.</p><p>-</p><p>He ends up on the couch.</p><p>The gamers have migrated to another room, or maybe just left altogether, and his only companion is some long-haired dude who’s baked out of his mind. He keeps looking at Adam and giggling helplessly. Adam’s resolved not to ask.</p><p>He gives himself a deadline. At half eleven he’ll make his way around the room, show his face again to Gansey and Henry and Blue, and then he’ll leave. That’s a reasonable amount of time to spend at a party, more than just showing face, enough to ensure his hosts don’t get the wrong idea and assume the worst about him. He doesn’t want Gansey’s inner circle to despise him but he can’t pretend he wants to be here, either.</p><p>In his pocket, his phone buzzes. It’s been going off all night.</p><p>He busies himself with cataloguing the various goings ons of the party-goers. Henry’s position as DJ has been well and truly hijacked by now and the music keeps switching between indie pop and top-40 hits. There are two separate groups whose eyes keep training on the speakers any time a new cycle begins. He wouldn’t be surprised if a fight breaks out.</p><p>Blue has laid her argument with Brad the Econ Major to rest and is now dancing in the middle of the room with Drunk Girl and co. He’s sure they don’t know each other – Blue’s only in town for the party – but from the way they’re huddled together, singing at the top of their lungs, you’d think they’d been friends for years. Something stirs in his gut, longing or self-loathing or some mix of the two. He pictures a world where he is that person, dancing in the middle of the room with strangers, no cares, no fears. A version of himself worth knowing.</p><p>The whole flat’s a mess, ashtrays littering the worktops, booze spilt on every surface, glass bottles and plastic cups and party poppers strewn all over the floor. An upturned table across the room. A cigarette burn on the arm of the couch. But it doesn’t matter, really, because Gansey can afford to fix it. He can pay someone to clean it up. Someone like Adam.</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing here?</em>
</p><p>There’s a pressure on the couch as someone sits down between him and stoner dude. Someone reeking of booze. He looks up and <em>oh, </em>right when he thought the night couldn’t get better. Ronan Lynch wants to have a fight.</p><p>“Jesus shitting Christ, do you ever pull that stick out your ass?”</p><p>Stoner dude gives Ronan a once-over and then leans back in his seat, unfazed. Adam attempts to do the same.</p><p>“The fuck? Parrish, are you deaf or something?”</p><p>He doesn’t flinch. It’s not a sore spot anymore, at least not one he’s willing to let Ronan weaponize. “What do you want?”</p><p>“What, I can’t sit here now? It’s my apartment.”</p><p>“It’s Gansey’s apartment,” Adam says. “You’re just the stowaway.”</p><p>It’s just a theory, but judging from the sour expression that passes over Ronan’s face he’s hit the mark.</p><p>“Whatever, asshole,” Ronan barks out, and Adam feels himself smiling. There’s something immensely satisfying about winning these pointless fights.</p><p>“What’s that? Couldn’t think of a comeback? That’s weak, Lynch, even by your standards.”</p><p>“Fuck you. The fuck are you even doing here?”</p><p>“Same thing as you, I reckon,” he says. “Suffering through a party I can’t stand for the only person here worth knowing.”</p><p>Ronan scoffs. He takes a long swig of the drink in his hand.</p><p>“Are you saying you’re not just hanging around to make Gansey feel better?”</p><p>“I’m hanging around because it’s my apartment,” Ronan snarls. “You’re here because you’re Gansey’s latest pet project.”</p><p>The smile slips off Adam’s face.</p><p>Humiliation crashes over him, the weight of it sudden and pronounced. He feels his face flush, his muscles locking in tight in preparation for the punch that normally follows. But Ronan would never hit him. He doesn’t need violence to strike a fatal blow; just the truth, weaponized in his hands, is deadly enough.</p><p>Through gritted teeth, Adam says, “At least I’m not the asshole faking poverty to hide the fact that I’ve squandered every opportunity that’s ever been handed to me.”</p><p>“Jesus. You’re a real piece of work.” Ronan slams his drink down on the table and gets up off the couch.</p><p>“Pot, meet kettle,” he says blandly, and watches Ronan walk away.</p><p>“Dude,” says Stoner Dude from the other end of the couch. He looks surprisingly lucid and Adam feels a second wave of shame come over him. Of course Ronan would take the opportunity to cut him down, to expose him for the mess he is, with an audience watching. “That was fucked, like.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Adam says. “Who asked you?”</p><p>He watches Adam for a beat too long before shrugging and climbing to his feet.</p><p>“Dude. I’m just saying. You wanna do unto others before life comes at ya. Fucking karma, man, that shit’s for real. You wanna die alone?”</p><p>“I’ll take my chances.”</p><p>Another shrug. He wanders off, in search of a pipe presumably. Adam sits there for who knows how long and stares ahead at the static TV screen, restless energy coursing through him. Ronan’s an asshole, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. But he’s Gansey’s best friend. Been with him since high school. He would know, more than anyone, wouldn’t he?</p><p>His phone buzzes. He takes it out this time and watches the call ring out, finger hovering over the answer button.</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing here?</em>
</p><p>He gets up.</p><p>Gansey’s easy to find this time. He’s in the kitchen, chatting amicably with Henry and another guy that Adam vaguely recognizes from class. He doesn’t know which class. Maybe all of them, what does it matter? He looks awed to be pulled into Gansey’s orbit and Adam can just picture the sneer Ronan would give him if he were here.</p><p>Probably Ronan doesn’t hate Adam, at all. He just recognizes him for what he is: temporary.</p><p>“Adam, hey!”</p><p>“Hey,” he says, managing a smile. “Listen, man, this was great. I think I’m gonna call it a night, though. My head is killing me.”</p><p>“Of course, of course! Why don’t you sit down. I’ll get you a drink,” Gansey says, gesturing to one of the many chairs at the breakfast bar. He’s drunk. “What do you drink again? Do you, you like G&amp;Ts, right? No, wait, no, that’s Spencer, I’m thinking of Spencer.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t drink,” Adam says. The hanger-on raises an eyebrow at that. “I really gotta go, though. Just wanted to thank you for inviting me. Really. I had a good time.”</p><p>“Nonsense! You can’t leave yet. Henry, tell Adam he’s not allowed to leave. I am forbidden it! Forbidding. Pudding.”</p><p>“I’m a dead man walking,” Henry laments. “Your mother is putting a hit out on me as we speak.”</p><p>“My mother is here?”</p><p>“Your mother expects you to make it all the way to D.C. tomorrow,” Henry says, and lets out a long suffering sigh. “The toils and trials of youth.”</p><p>Adam says one last goodbye and takes his cue to leave. Nobody stands in his way or calls out to stop him. Nobody notices at all. He finds his threadbare coat buried beneath all the designer brands on the rack, shucks it on, and quietly steps outside.</p><p>One good thing about Gansey’s fancy apartment suite: there’s an elevator. He makes it to the ground floor in record time, bracing himself for the cool February air outside. It’s barely past eleven. He could probably still catch a bus back to the dorms but he’s not in the mood to face any other people right now. He blows some hot air onto his hands, slips them in his pockets and starts walking.</p><p>He makes it two blocks before the memory of his phone buzzing all night begins to weigh on him. He’d been ignoring it for days now, reluctant to engage when he already knew exactly what she wanted. First day of the month, every month without fail for eighteen months now. Wash, rinse, repeat.</p><p>He takes the phone out of his pocket. The last call was less than fifteen minutes ago. They’ll still be awake. And what does he have to gain, really, by putting this off? It’s like a shot. The anticipation is worse than the pain itself.</p><p>He dials.</p><p>“Adam? That you?”</p><p>“It’s me.”</p><p>“Been calling for days. You didn’t pick up.”</p><p>“I was busy.” And then, because he’s a masochist: “Had this big exam this morning. I think it went pretty well.”</p><p>Radio silence.</p><p>He reaches the intersection. Looks left, then right. Doesn’t move.</p><p>“You sent that cheque out yet?”</p><p>“It’s on its way.”</p><p>“Good.” He waits for something more, an admission of guilt or good will, anger, spite, scorn, anything more than this blank detachment. But his mother’s had nothing to give him for a long time now. Change isn’t coming through the phone. “I should get going,” she says after a beat too long. “It’s getting late here.”</p><p>“Okay. Take care of yourself, Mom.”</p><p>The line goes dead.</p><p>He keeps the phone pressed to his ear for long enough till his hand stops shaking. Then, carefully, he returns it to his pocket. He counts to ten, twenty. He blinks back the awful pressure behind his eyes. He steps onto the road.</p><p>Blinding lights. A blaring horn. And then pain, awful cataclysmic pain, ripping through him<em>, burning,</em> everything burning–</p><p>And then nothing. Nothing at all.</p><p>-</p><p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>Adam bolts upright, head spinning, gripped with nausea. His heart’s beating so hard he’s scared it’ll burst out his chest. He tries to speak and a dry retch comes out.</p><p>“Oh my god, don’t freak out, just chill, oh my god. Should I call 911? Are you, like, overdosing right now?”</p><p>Adam knows that voice. It’s the girl from the party, the drunk girl. He looks around frantically. He’s on a bed that’s not his in a room he <em>definitely</em> recognizes. And it’s not a hospital.</p><p>“How did I get here?”</p><p>“I don’t know! I just wanted some cell reception and you were passed out, man. I just freaked!”</p><p>He looks at the girl, then at the window, then back again.</p><p>It wasn’t raining when he left.</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>“What time is it?” he asks.</p><p>“Like nine or something?”</p><p>This cannot be happening. This cannot be real. He looks around the room with a dizzying sense of horror. Beyond the door, Madonna starts playing from the speakers.</p><p>“What the fuck?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s the same party right down to every last detail.</p><p>Same music playing in the same order. Same people standing in the same places, saying and doing all the same things. Henry at the speakers, Blue at the breakfast bar, Gansey nowhere to be seen.</p><p>Adam is losing his damn mind.</p><p>There has to be a logical explanation. Of course there’s an explanation. It’s déjà vu taken to its very extreme. He dreamt it. He dreamt the whole party. He dreamt the absolute worst-case scenario of the party, and now he’s got an opportunity to live out something better.</p><p>He needs a drink.</p><p>He heads over to the kitchen, as if he has any intention of pouring himself one and isn’t just looking for an excuse to keep moving. A group of guys he vaguely recognizes are throwing steak knives at a crudely drawn cardboard dart board taped to Gansey’s fridge. He sidesteps the crowd and picks up an empty cup.</p><p>The multitude of options laid out on the counters is overwhelming. He reads some of the labels before resolving that he’s actually <em>not </em>ready to become drunk-guy-having-a-breakdown-at-the-party.</p><p>Across the breakfast bar, Blue is still arguing with Econ Major Brad. Adam catches a few stray words – something about “cultural bias” – and decides he does not want to hear the rest. He does want to talk to Blue, though. Blue, who is (mostly) sensible and to the point. Blue, who would surely not give him the time of day if she had any lingering doubts about his grip on sanity. She’d tell him if she thought he was out of his mind batshit fucking insane, and maybe that’s what he needs. Maybe talking this through with someone who’s sure to laugh at him will bring him to his senses again.</p><p>He catches her eye and waves a little. She rolls her eyes – <em>this guy’s a real asshole</em> – and then turns back to Brad and loudly proclaims she is “done talking in circles when you clearly don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to get it.”</p><p>“God,” she sighs a few moments later, once Brad’s sauntered off. “I really don’t know how you do it, Adam. These <em>people</em>…”</p><p>“There’s no use trying to teach empathy to a bunch of trust fund brats who’ve never had to work for anything in their lives,” Adam says. “They’re never gonna get it, and you’re only gonna wear yourself out trying.”</p><p>“If I really thought that was true, I wouldn’t be here. And neither would you.”</p><p>He shrugs. “Most people aren’t like Gansey.”</p><p>“Ugh, I guess,” she says. “But I don’t want to be a hypocrite and write <em>all</em> of them off. I mean Gansey likes these guys, right? They’ve got to have at least some redeeming qualities.”</p><p>“Gansey likes Ronan, too.”</p><p>“Point,” she says, and raises her cup. “Honestly, though, Lynch really isn’t that bad once you get used to him. Don’t tell him I said that.”</p><p>Lynch, not that bad? Adam raises an eyebrow but he doesn’t question the logic. Blue met Gansey back when him and Lynch still lived in Virginia, a story that Gansey’s reiterated to him too many times to count over the last few months. He supposes it makes sense that they grew to tolerate each other, that they struck up something resembling a friendship of their own.</p><p>Back in the beginning, those dreary November days when Gansey first took notice of Adam, Adam used to imagine what it would’ve been like to be friends with them all back then. To have been a part of the adventures that Gansey so often narrated to him, trawling through caves, taking on the Blue Ridge Mountains, swapping small-town mundanity for something magical, something <em>more</em>. Forging lifelong friendships that were meaningful and true.</p><p>In the end he had to force himself to stop entertaining such silly fantasies. This was what he had, and no daydreaming could change that. It was better that Gansey was meeting him now, anyway, when he was on the path to becoming something better. If Gansey had seen him then, careening down dusty roads on his beat up second-hand bike, he might never have given him a second glance.</p><p>“Seriously,” Blue’s saying now, and he realizes he’s checked out, “you should’ve seen the look on his face when he realized I’d been standing there the whole time. Like total, abject horror. Don’t let him fool you, he’s a dork.”</p><p>“Hey, listen,” he says suddenly, and Blue does a double take. Okay, maybe he should’ve worked to sound a little<em> less</em> like a madman first, but that’s hindsight for you. “I had the weirdest dream earlier.”</p><p>“How weird?”</p><p>“Like, a solid 10.”</p><p>“Define weird.”</p><p>“Try disturbingly accurate déjà vu. The party – I dreamt this whole party. But I think I died at the end. I don’t know. And then I woke up here.”</p><p>“Pshaw, that’s not weird,” Blue says dismissively</p><p>“You really don’t think so?”</p><p>“I die in my dreams all the time. Happens to everyone.”</p><p>“But this whole night happened,” he says. “Only it didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like I was really here, and now I’m here again–”</p><p>“Have you been smoking weed?”</p><p>“I don’t smoke.”</p><p>“Right. Well, you should definitely fix that.” She takes a long swig of her drink, pats him on the back and then walks off.</p><p>Adam reconsiders the merits of becoming drunk-guy-having-breakdown-at-the-party.</p><p>Forget it. He wanders, aimless, circling the edges of the crowd. He thinks about the dream, because he’s certain now that that’s what it was, because what else <em>could </em>it be? Blue seemed convinced it was normal, common even, and he has no reason to doubt her. So it was a dream, albeit one more realistic than usual. He’s never been the type to analyze his dreams for subliminal messages. Figured that was nonsense, that dream logic couldn’t possibly be applied to the waking world.</p><p>And what would the message be here, anyway? Look both ways when you’re crossing the street? Duly noted.</p><p>“Adam! You’re awake!”</p><p>It’s Gansey, looking much happier than he did last time. In the dream. Whatever.</p><p>In the midst of all this chaos, Adam forgot about finding him. He forgot about being angry-slash-embarrassed over crashing in Gansey’s room for hours. There’s not much use bringing it up now, though, not when it turned out so badly the last time.</p><p>Maybe there <em>is</em> something to be learned from dreams.</p><p>“Hey, man,” he says instead. “Didn’t know you were friends with this many people.”</p><p>“Oh, well, you know how it is,” Gansey says. Adam most certainly doesn’t. “You get talking to all these people at orientation, at parties, you hit it off, you follow them on Facebook or Twitter orInstagram and then you never see them again. But oh, you’re friends, it’s right there on the screen, see. And I hate that. I really hate that. Don’t you hate that?”</p><p>Adam has never experienced that, is barely sure what <em>that </em>is, but he nods along.</p><p>“It’s sad. I’ve always wanted something that’s meaningful and…what’s the word…authentic. That’s what I like about you, Adam, you don’t worry what anyone thinks, you don’t play games, you’re<em> real</em> and <em>true</em>. I want to surround myself with people just like that, that make me want to do better.”</p><p>Adam stares at him, stunned. It’s no wonder that so many people went out their way to turn up here for Gansey tonight, that he draws them in so easily, that they gravitate towards him like planets sucked into the sun’s gravitational pull. It’s the Gansey Effect. The right look, the right smile, the right words, and he can leave you feeling like you’re the only person in the room that matters. That you’re really something special.</p><p>He is a politician’s son.</p><p>“How much have you had to drink?” Adam says, and laughs a little.</p><p>“I’m not drunk,” Gansey protests. “A little tipsy, perhaps, I’ll admit.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’d say you’re a bit beyond tipsy.”</p><p>“Adam.” Gansey reaches out, suddenly, to grab Adam’s shoulder, and Adam does not flinch but it’s a close call. “I’m really glad you’re here.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have missed it.”</p><p>“Not the party,” he says, “forget the party, that’s all – well, it is what it is, isn’t it? I mean I’m glad you’re here, you and Blue and Ronan and Henry and, and, everyone, of course everyone, but you, sometimes I think you don’t–”</p><p>“Gansey, man, you’re rambling.”</p><p>Gansey frowns. A shadow passes over his face, there then gone, blink and you’ll miss it.</p><p>“You’re right,” he says, and smiles mirthfully. “You know, I think I might be less sober than anticipated, after all.”</p><p>“I can get you some water, if you want.”</p><p>“No, no, that’s all right. Thanks, Adam.” He pats Adam on the shoulder, once, twice, then wanders off.</p><p>Adam looks around for a place to sit, or a corner to lurk in, but screw it, he’s had enough. He needs some air.</p><p>He leaves his coat on the rack and makes his way out to the stairwell. Just ten minutes, then he’ll go back in. He’ll make small talk with the guys from psych, he’ll help Henry pick out some guy to hook up with, he’ll toss some barbs back and forth with Ronan. Whatever. He just needs some time to get his bearings.</p><p>It’s freezing outside but he supposes he already knew that. He crosses to the other side of the street and starts walking slowly, no destination in mind, so long as he gets away from the party. He wonders for the third time (or, really, the first) what it is he’s doing here. What is it he’s hoping to achieve? Gansey said it himself, he has no shortage of friends, and most of them he barely sees. They cycle in and out of his life, weekly study dates turning to monthly social media check-ins turning to annual birthday wishes. Is that who he wants to become? One day he’ll stop having this, and then he’ll be so much worse off. It’s only been three months and already he can see the threads unravelling, the way he disappoints Gansey without even trying.</p><p>He thinks about high school, all those fruitless attempts to build something substantial only to be cut down every time. Too strange, too serious, too much baggage. Thinking it could be different somewhere else was his first mistake. He’s always going to carry it with him, that troubling disposition that keeps him apart from everybody else. What a wretched, lonesome thing he is–</p><p>“Oh my god, look out!”</p><p>Adam turns around, confused, and then it hits him.<em> Literally</em> hits him.</p><p>His body crumbles to the sidewalk, pain rocketing through his skull, and there are voices screaming from up above but he can’t make anything out, can’t see. He chokes and only blood comes up.</p><p><em>A window</em>, he thinks numbly. <em>I just got hit in the head by a falling window.</em></p><p>He passes out.</p><p>-</p><p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>No, no, no, no, no, no, no.</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>He is not doing this again. This is not happening again. He is <em>dead.</em></p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>“Jesus, man, I’m so not cut out for this. Have you got, like, a friend or something?”</p><p>Drunk Girl’s watching him like a deer caught in the headlights. It occurs to him that he’s been talking out loud.</p><p>“I’m fine,” he says weakly, which does nothing to kill the bug-eyed look on her face. “I’m fine. Sorry. Can you just leave me alone?”</p><p>“Uh–”</p><p>“Please. I really need to be alone right now.”</p><p>She takes one last look at him, grimaces, and then stumbles out the room.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>This is not a dream after all. This is hell. He’s in hell, living the last two hours of his life on a loop, because the first twenty years of it weren’t punishment enough.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He’s going to die, and die, and keep on dying.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>-</p><p>Adam leaves the party and immediately heads home.</p><p>He falls down a stank two blocks from campus.</p><p>Adam wakes up at the party, calls a cab from the safety of the bedroom, and then carefully makes his way outside.</p><p>They’re hit by a truck less than a minute into the drive.</p><p>By the fifth time round, Adam gives up tempting fate. Screw it. If he has to stay at this damn party for the rest of the night, he will. If he has to abandon his dignity and hide out in Gansey’s room until this twisted horror show is over, he’ll do it. He’s not letting this night get the better of him.</p><p>He commits himself to making detailed notes about his environment, cataloguing every movement of the party-goers. At 9:27 on the dot, Blue gives up arguing with Econ Major Brad and pours herself another drink. At 9:32, she spills half that drink down Drunk Girl’s shirt and, rather than getting mad, Drunk Girl laughs it off. They hit the dance-floor at 9:49.</p><p>At 9:41, Gansey emerges from the hallway and is immediately waylaid by the intoxicated dart players. Adam’s not sure where the fuck Ronan went; he must’ve slipped by while Adam was looking the other way.</p><p>At 9:57, Henry surrenders his post at the speakers and gets talking to Econ Major Brad. Brad disappears into the hallway at 10:13. Henry follows suit 4 minutes later.</p><p>The pattern will change if Adam interferes with it, so he keeps himself to the fringes to the best of his abilities. It’s his control group. He needs to see how they react in his absence so he can work out what the hell it is he’s been doing wrong. Because there’s a clue here somewhere, there<em> has</em> to be. There’s a reason he keeps waking up at this party and not in his dorm room bed. Something happens here tonight, something he has to change. He’s sure of it.</p><p>He watches and watches and watches till his mind’s overflowing with mental notes and his head feels like it’s ready to explode. The minutes tick by and still no cue to act, no tragedy to prevent, nothing. But it’ll come. He knows it’ll come. If he just keeps waiting–</p><p>“Adam, just the man we need.”</p><p><em>And there it is</em>.</p><p>“Is there a problem?” he asks Henry, like he doesn’t already know the answer. He’s ready for this, whatever it might be. Dying four times over has prepared him to handle anything. He checks the time. 11:16. His longest night yet.<em> Yes</em>. He can do this.</p><p>“Is there a<em> problem</em>? Adam, please, don’t undermine the gravity of the situation. We are dealing with a calamity here.”</p><p>“Okay, okay, we can handle this. What do you need me to do?”</p><p>“I need you to call down to Gulino’s and ask what happened to my 3-for-2 pizza deal.”</p><p>Adam stares at him and waits for punchline, but Henry looks solemn as ever. That can’t possibly –“You’re kidding, right?”</p><p>“I would never joke about something as dire as this,” Henry says. “An hour. That’s how long they’ve kept me waiting. I think my stomach’s started eating itself.”</p><p>“An hour ago you were hooking up with Brad in Gansey’s toilet,” Adam points out. Henry does not look ashamed because he is a shameless creature, but he does look rather bewildered. It occurs to Adam that spying on everybody in the room might be considered creepy by normal not-dying people’s standards.</p><p>“Nothing gets past you, Parrish. You know I–”</p><p>“Admire that about me? Yeah, I got that.” He takes a deep breath. This is fine. Maybe the real calamity will come later. Maybe the real calamity is that the Gulino’s delivery boy has been run over by a truck on the way over, and it’s up to Adam to talk Henry out of ordering from their overpriced menu in the first place. “Is there a reason why you can’t just call them yourself?”</p><p>Henry shrugs. “Your old-school phone is the only thing capable of picking up a signal in this apartment.”</p><p>Goddamn rich boys.</p><p>He takes Henry’s order details – because of course he ordered online – and then retreats to Gansey’s bedroom, the best place for cell reception. He opens the window wide and perches on the windowsill beside the mint plant. The night air is cool and refreshing against his face and he breathes it in, relishing in the feeling of beating the odds, of being <em>alive.</em></p><p>“Gulino’s Pizza, how can I help?”</p><p>“Hi there,” Adam says. “I’m calling about an order I placed–”</p><p>“–WHAT DID I TELL YOU, THAT LYING CHEATING BASTARD–”</p><p>Adam jumps out his skin as the door flies open behind him. The phone slips out his grasp. He leans over to catch it–</p><p>And falls head-first out the window.</p><p>-</p><p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>Adam brings the pillow to his face and screams.</p><p>“Okay!” Drunk Girl says. “Leaving you to it!”</p><p>-</p><p>He emerges from the room god knows how long later, moving through the flat on autopilot. All the rage and panic and fear is gone and now he’s numb to it all. Life is one cruel trick after another and suffering is inevitable, yeah, yeah, he could’ve told you that a long time ago. Nothing new here, just another problem to add to the list.</p><p>He takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets go. Again. Again.</p><p>He’s fine.</p><p>He’s ready for that drink now.</p><p>He walks over to the breakfast bar. Ignores Blue arguing a few feet away. Ignores Henry shouting his name from across the room. He finds a clean plastic cup and pours in a considerable amount of vodka. More than a shot, maybe more than two, who knows; pouring drinks isn’t a science he’s familiar with.</p><p>He considers his options. Lemonade? Coke? Tonic? What’s the difference? He picks one at random and moves on. Takes a sip. It tastes bad, but nowhere near as bad as anticipated. Certainly not the worst thing he’ll experience tonight.</p><p>He takes another sip, and then another. If he keeps this up, maybe he’ll fall asleep here and wake up back in reality. Or he’ll get so blackout drunk that he won’t feel any pain, when it happens. Whatever it is.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>He finishes the drink as quickly as he can manage – not quick enough – and goes back for another. Death by alcohol poisoning is a distinct possibility here but would that really be any more humiliating than being crushed to death by a window pane falling off some luxury high rise flat? At least this way, he won’t have to lament on the ironic class issues underpinning it all.</p><p>Two drinks in, he starts to feel some effects. A vague light-headedness, an insistent urge to giggle. Nothing to see here, he’s just the guy in the corner laughing at his own thoughts. It’s funny, really funny, reliving this party over and over. He knows what everyone’s going to do before they do it. He could make some real money out of this, start up a business from Gansey’s toilet and charge these rich assholes a fortune to predict the future of some other bastard in the room. They’d definitely fall for that. He could go to the grave with cash in his pockets for once.</p><p>“What’s got into you? Are you <em>giggling</em>?”</p><p>“I’m gonna cheat them out of every cent,” he says, “in the toilet. I’m gonna open my business in the bath.”</p><p>“Oh, so this is a ‘I’m drunk and everything’s hysterical’ type thing, not a desperate cry for help type thing.”</p><p>Blue isn’t laughing which sucks because he thinks she’s the only one that would get it. They could be in this together. They could scam Brad, that stupid fucker Brad, and then Gansey would see them getting along and he wouldn’t even mind they ruined his party because they’re doing something that’s<em> real</em> and <em>true </em>and what was that other word he used?</p><p>“You’re not one for drinking, are you?” Blue says.</p><p>“I’m dying, Blue.”</p><p>“Ugh. Do I need to implement a buddy system?”</p><p>“Not like that,” he says. “I’m really dying. You remember that dream I told you about?”</p><p>“I haven’t spoke to you all night.”</p><p>“Yeah, right, other night,” he says. “Actually tonight. Doesn’t matter. It’s not a dream, anyway, it happened and it keeps happening. I don’t know <em>why </em>and I don’t know <em>how</em>. I’m stuck in a loop that keeps on looping.”</p><p>“Here, drink this.”</p><p>There’s a glass of water in his hand. And he’s sitting down now, too. When did <em>that </em>happen?</p><p>“Seriously,” Blue says, “you need to stay hydrated. Did you eat before you came here?”</p><p>“I ate…” He thinks about it. “This morning.” He points at Blue. “I think so. Kinda hazy now. I’ve had a<em> lot</em> of head injuries.”</p><p>“Jesus, I should get paid for this,” she says. “Where the hell is Gansey?”</p><p>“Fighting with Ronan.”</p><p>“I haven’t seen Ronan all night.”</p><p>“Because he’s in his room fighting with Gansey. And then he goes somewhere, I don’t know where. And then he fights with me but I’m not gonna fight with him this time. He’s a dick. Why are you even friends with him? He’s such a dick.”</p><p>He realizes a second too late that he’s now talking to himself.</p><p>Whatever. He doesn’t need Blue. He sips his water and watches the party, but it’s a lot less funny now. Blue ruined that for him.</p><p>“Adam.” And now Gansey’s here to ruin it too, brilliant. Can’t he enjoy his last few hours for once? “Adam, are you feeling okay? You don’t usually drink.”</p><p>“Oh, so you remember that,” he says. “Last time you thought I was Spencer.”</p><p>Gansey frowns. “I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“Yeah, you wouldn’t.”</p><p>“Blue is a bit concerned about your well-being.” Gansey says this very slowly, like he’s talking to a toddler. A real stupid toddler, too. Adam was never a stupid toddler. “And frankly, I don’t blame her. You’re acting very out of sorts.”</p><p>Dying five times over does that to you. He thinks it but he doesn’t say it. He shouldn’t have told Blue, either, but apparently drinking makes it impossible to keep all your thoughts in your head where they belong.</p><p>He wonders if this is how his father felt the first few times he did it, if that’s why he kept doing it. Adam can’t blame him for that. The initial rush is fun and exhilarating. Who wouldn’t want to feel like this all the time? All fun and floaty and free from such problems as a ticking death clock and the pressure of <em>bills bills bills</em> and a weird off-putting queer son that wants too much and offers not enough, just takes up time and money and space you don’t have.</p><p>Yeah. He gets it now.</p><p>“Adam? Are you listening?”</p><p>He nods numbly.</p><p>“So it’s settled, then. You promise?”</p><p>“Yeah. I promise.” Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know what it is. He’ll be dead soon anyway.</p><p>“Great.” Gansey’s smile is gentle and a touch condescending. It’s possible he is paranoid. “You’re more than welcome to stay here tonight. In fact, you’d be doing a great deal to ease my state of mind.”</p><p>“All right. I’ll do that. Thanks.”</p><p>“Right. Well…I’ll just be right over there, on the other side of the room, if you need me. Okay?”</p><p>He nods again. Telling Gansey what he wants to hear is so easy when he knows he won’t have to suffer the consequences.</p><p>He gives it ten minutes – doesn’t want to get tackled on the way out the door – before he gets up and goes.</p><p>His phone rings when he steps into the elevator. He thinks it’s been ringing all night and he’s just been too out of it to notice. Doesn’t matter. Next time he’ll call her back. No, wait, he’ll pick up the first time it rings. Maybe he should’ve been doing that all along.</p><p>The elevator stops on another floor and an army of middle-aged drunks start pouring in. He moves over to give them space. One of them brushes against his side and he pulls his arm tight against his chest.</p><p>“Parrish?”</p><p>Wait. That’s not a middle-aged drunk speaking; that’s Ronan Lynch.</p><p>Adam looks up, looks right at him. His eyes are red-rimmed (crying? drugs?) and he is full of restless energy, tap-tap-tapping at the floor like a man with a tic. He looks as surprised to see Adam as Adam is to see him.</p><p>“I thought you were still at the party,” Adam says.</p><p>“I thought <em>you </em>were still at the party,” Ronan says, and then he checks his phone. “It’s half 10.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“Fuck it. You wouldn’t get it.” And then, mumbling to himself, “Are there just no rules to this shit anymore?”</p><p> The elevator doors close. They start descending.</p><p>What was Ronan doing on the floor beneath his apartment? Where’s he going? Come to think of it, where’s he been these last few loops? Adam hasn’t spoken to him since that first night on the couch. Then again, Adam’s not been looking for him. Maybe this is all part of Ronan’s nightly routine. He visits his neighbours, goes for a walk, comes back to the flat to piss Adam off.</p><p>Maybe…</p><p>But why doesn’t he smell like booze?</p><p>He looks at Ronan. Ronan’s already looking at him.</p><p>Their eyes widen at the same time.</p><p>“Shit!”</p><p>Ronan shoves his way to the front of the elevator, swearing obscenely, but he’s too late. The elevator stops abruptly, sends bodies careening into one another. Panic tears through the crowd like wildfire, screams and shouts and hysterical laughter all coalescing into one big mass of white noise, and above it all there’s Ronan cursing everything to hell, slamming his fist against the doors, pressing buttons frantically.</p><p>Adam’s struck still by the knowledge that he’s not alone, that he’s not crazy, that this is really happening. Ronan’s been trapped in the same hellish cycle this <em>whole time</em>–</p><p>The elevator creaks. The screaming gets louder. He grips the railing, knuckles straining against flesh, and shuts his eyes.</p><p>
  <em>Please be quick, please be quick, please be quick.</em>
</p><p>They go crashing to the ground.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Not a lot of Ronan in this chapter, sorry. I swear he'll play a huge role in every chapter to follow!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ronan Lynch wakes up on the seventh day to a hangover-induced headache and the Beach Boys warbling about good vibrations on the radio. Just like every other day this week.</p><p>So much for fucking sabbaticals.</p><p>He stumbles his way over to the bathroom on muscle memory, dodging a bottle cap here, an empty plate there. Seven minutes in the shower, four minutes shaving, another two to brush his teeth. Back to the bedroom. Window open. Right on time, Chainsaw comes flying inside.</p><p>Nineteen minutes in he picks his phone up, swipes DECLINE CALL before it’s even got the chance to start ringing. His dickbag brother can wait. Ronan has a Harvard asshole to find.</p><p>Gansey left for class hours ago because it’s already half twelve, because the one day Ronan actually has important shit to do is the day his insomnia fails him, real funny, God. He knows next to nothing about Gansey’s school schedule and even less about Parrish’s but he’s no doubt that the fucker’s there right now putting in the time. Not even gruesome elevator death could keep Parrish from handing in his homework assignments. Guy’s unhinged.</p><p>There’s nothing else for it; he calls Gansey.</p><p>One, two, three rings, and then a “Ronan? Is everything all right?” because if Ronan’s willingly using his cellphone then it’s surely a sign of impending doom. He thinks of saying, <em>Everything’s peachy, Dick, just died for the sixth time in a row!</em> but he’s already explained this nightmare to Gansey three times now, and not once has he been any use. Turns out the old man can understand <em>there’s a ten thousand year old sleeping king buried somewhere in the foothills of Virginia</em> but draws the line at <em>I’ve been reliving my death day on a loop for a whole damn week now. </em>Convenient.</p><p>“Everything’s good,” Ronan says. Has Parrish tried talking to Gansey too? “Just waiting for the fire brigade.”</p><p>“I’m sorry – the <em>what</em> now?”</p><p>Probably Gansey would listen if it came from Parrish. “Just fucking with you, man. I need Parrish’s number.”</p><p>“Why do you need Adam’s number?”</p><p>Probably anything’s worth taking seriously if it came from Parrish, yeah, he would <em>never think</em> to take the piss. “’Cause we need him to fix the sink.”</p><p>“Ronan. Please tell me the apartment is still in one piece.”</p><p>“You don’t think Parrish would be willing to help?”</p><p>“I think Adam would take great offence if he were to hear this conversation.” A long suffering sigh. Ronan’s real good at provoking those. “Do you actually need his number or not?”</p><p>“Depends. Is he with you right now?”</p><p>“No, no, he had a morning lab, I think. He’s at work now.” Yep, Parrish is certifiable all right. Ideal partner to wade through the trenches with, totally not the type to fall victim to shell-shock induced insanity and tear Ronan’s guts out while he’s getting some shut-eye. “Do I want to know what this is about?”</p><p>“Absolutely not,” Ronan says.</p><p>He waits one beat, two beats, three beats, four, while Gansey frets over whether or not to give Parrish’s number up, like some over-protective father debating whether to slam the door on his daughter’s no-good prom date. Ronan would be offended if he did not fully accept that it’s his own damn fault for picking fights with Parrish while Gansey was in earshot. Never mind that Parrish gives as good as he gets and has a mean streak to rival Ronan’s own. Gansey’s still in the rose-tinted honeymoon phase and thinks Parrish hung the sun and moon, and so it <em>must</em> be so.</p><p>“Fuck it, man, just tell me where he works,” Ronan says. “I can do the rest in person.”</p><p>“I’ll tell you,” Gansey says, “but you need to promise you won’t do anything to upset him.”</p><p>“Don’t get Parrish fired, got it.”</p><p>Gansey sighs again. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”</p><p><em>It’s fine, Dick</em>, Ronan thinks. <em>You’ll forget all about it tomorrow.</em></p><p>-</p><p>Home Depot.</p><p>Adam Parrish works at Home sweet motherfucking Depot.</p><p>Ronan’s seen every Final Destination film in the franchise; he knows how this goes. Will it be bludgeoning by mismanaged equipment or mowed to death by a forklift gone awry? All his other deaths have taken place late at night, but Ronan’s not about to take any chances. If he catches sight of a single nail gun he is running for the hills.</p><p>Luckily, Parrish is easy enough to find. He’s on the tills, and surely to God their luck isn’t so bad that they’re at risk of being murdered in broad daylight at the Home Depot checkout.</p><p>There’s a queue of three people and Parrish is the only person serving. He either hasn’t noticed Ronan yet or he’s doing a damn good at pretending not to notice him. Whatever, Ronan can work with that. He picks up a single pack of triple A batteries and joins the queue.</p><p>He taps his feet, hums along to the dance-pop song playing over the speakers. He doesn’t actually know the words but hey, they’re all one in the same, aren’t they? Sex, drugs and parties, <em>getting ready for the party, showing my shit off at the party, breaking my neck at the party</em>. He’s really starting to get the appeal of the genre.</p><p>Parrish definitely notices him now. He doesn’t break composure, though, just keeps chatting away to the elderly woman in front of him. She’s buying plant pots and all-purpose soil, and Parrish has some opinions about that. At least if Harvard doesn’t work out, he can always lean in on his charming Southern act and start his own garden show for the geriatric daytime crowd.</p><p>“Have a good day, ma’am,” he says easily as the woman gathers her things and goes. The <em>adopt me now</em> smile’s gone the minute his gaze shifts to Ronan. He scans the batteries and says, “Will that be all?”</p><p>“I don’t know, Parrish. Crazy thing happened last night. And the night before that. And the night before that. I keep waking up feeling like I broke my damn neck.”</p><p>“Sounds like a medical problem,” he says. “Try CVS. That’ll be five dollars and ninety-seven cents, please.”</p><p>“You’re fucking with me, man. The hell are doing in this death trap of a store?”</p><p>“We don’t all have trust funds to fall back on, Lynch,” he says through gritted teeth. A man shuffles up behind Ronan and sets his paint tins down on the floor. Parrish shifts back into Customer Service Mode and asks, “Would you like a bag with that?</p><p>“Jesus fuck, what’s your damage? You think any of this matters? We’re dying, Parrish, your slave wages aren’t gonna save the day.”</p><p>Parrish’s creepy Customer Service Smile falters and a glimpse of barely-repressed rage sneaks through. Ronan’s usually a big fan of that look – a pissed off Parrish is a fun Parrish – but given the current circumstances, it’s not doing it for him today. What exactly is Parrish playing at?</p><p>“Five dollars ninety-seven cents, when you’re ready,” Parrish says again. Maybe he really is out of his mind. Ronan didn’t truly believe it but it’s hardly a stretch of the imagination; beauty, brains <em>and </em>a winning personality can’t all co-exist within the same person. “Will you be paying cash or card?”</p><p>Ronan slams a ten dollar note down and leaves without his change.</p><p>He returns, ten minutes later, with the weirdest shit he could find on the shelves. Ronan can play games too; he can out-nuisance any nuisance.</p><p>“You know there’s a camera right above the till, right?” Parrish says by way of making conversation. “And my boss checks it after every shift.”</p><p>“So they’ll see I’m loyal to the company.”</p><p>“They’ll see you’re a pest.”</p><p>“Careful, Parrish. Wouldn’t want your boss to see you disrespecting a valued customer.”</p><p>Parrish rolls his eyes. He reads the label on Ronan’s latest haul and gives him a dubious look. “Really?”</p><p>“We’re running low at home,” Ronan says.</p><p>“Oh, low on coyote urine, we can’t have that.“</p><p>“Right. The fuck am I meant to do, switch to puma urine?”</p><p>“Coyotes are canines.”</p><p>“Woah, there, Harvard man. Looks like that Ivy education is finally paying off.”</p><p>Parrish huffs out a breath. He shoots a glance behind Ronan, at the middle aged soccer mom who’s doing a poor job of pretending she’s not eavesdropping.</p><p>“Listen,” he says, voice lowered, “If you think coming in here to harass me is enough to make me bail on the party tonight, you’re a lot more stupid than you look. Now pay for your shit, you’re embarrassing yourself.”</p><p>“Harass you? I’m trying to talk some sense through to your damn skull.”</p><p>“I mean it, Lynch. You need to leave.”</p><p>“So we’re just gonna pretend last night never happened, is that how you wanna do this? We’re gonna wait for it to happen another fifty times and then <em>maybe</em> we’ll give it some thought. Great fucking plan! I can really see how you got that scholarship.”</p><p>If Parrish didn’t look ready to murder Ronan before, he definitely does now.</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, “and I don’t want to. Just go.”</p><p>“Bullshit you don’t know. I saw how you looked at me, you lying–”</p><p>“Hi there!” Woman’s voice, right behind him. Ronan grudgingly turns around. She’s twice his age, wearing the Home Depot uniform alongside a headset. She’s also smiling in a way that says <em>Don’t fucking try me. </em>“Is there a problem here, sir?”</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye he sees Parrish smirk. Well, fine then. If this is how he wants to play it then Ronan has no objections. He can keep on dying alone, it’s no skin off Ronan’s back.</p><p>“No problems at all. The staff here are so damn helpful!” Ronan swipes his card, picks up his coyote urine and storms out the doors. He does not look back.</p><p>-</p><p>He gets back to the flat and about-turns when he sees who’s waiting outside the door.</p><p>“Screw this.”</p><p>“Ronan–”</p><p>“I don’t have shit to say to you.” He can’t believe he walked into this trap again. He’s been successfully avoiding this run-in with Declan for the last four days now, but Parrish threw him off his game.<em> Damn</em> him.</p><p>Declan follows him down the stairs and out the front door. He follows him down the street and then back up it again, and all the while he’s talking shit about the money, the house, their father, like Ronan cares what he’s got to say for himself, what half-assed justifications he has to make. If he wanted Ronan’s approval he should’ve thought twice before selling everything they own at the drop of a hat.</p><p>They reach a set of traffic lights. Ronan thinks about flinging himself into the middle of the road, resetting the day before it’s properly begun, that’ll show Declan<em> and</em> Parrish, but then a hand latches onto his shoulder and spins him around.</p><p>“Back the fuck off, man,” Ronan says, and shakes the grip loose.</p><p>“Will you stop acting like a spoiled brat and let me say what I came here to say?”</p><p>“I don’t care what you have to say. Didn’t ask.”</p><p>Declan sighs and grips the bridge of his nose. He’s got bags under his eyes and looks like a dead man walking, but it serves him right. He shouldn’t be able to sleep after the stunt he pulled. Ronan hopes it haunts him for the rest of his boring-ass empty life.</p><p>An open-top sedan whooshes by, same song from Home Depot blasting on the speakers. Ronan wonders if it’s an omen. Maybe he’s going to get crushed by a falling telephone pole before Declan can continue this conversation.</p><p>“We need to talk about this sooner or later,” Declan says. No such luck, then.</p><p>“Funny that. You weren’t interested in talking when you put the damn house up for sale.”</p><p>“Ronan, please. Let’s go back to the apartment. We can discuss the situation.”</p><p><em>Discuss the situation</em>, like they’re businessmen gathered around in some musty conference room pouring over cut-and-dry legal material. What a prime Declanism. Ronan hates his guts more than he thought humanly possible.</p><p>“There’s nothing to discuss,” he says. “Don’t act like you had some moral reason for doing it. You did it because you’ve always hated this family. You hated Dad, you hated the Barns, you hated everything we had there! And now it’s all gone. Fucking congrats in order, Dec, you got what you wanted.”</p><p>“You don’t know the first thing–” Declan cuts himself off. Runs a hand through his hair. Shakes his head. The first time they had this conversation, Ronan punched him in the face. It’s sheer will power that’s keeping him from making the same choice all over again. “This really doesn’t have to be difficult, Ronan. If you could just behave like a damn adult–”</p><p>He shoves Declan out the way and makes a beeline for the other side of the street.</p><p>“Call me when you’re ready to grow up,” Declan shouts.</p><p>Ronan flips him off without looking back.</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan never wanted to move to Cambridge.</p><p>He never wanted to live in Gansey’s shiny new apartment, privy to his shiny new Harvard life. He never wanted to go to Gansey’s birthday party with all his shiny new Harvard friends, hovering on the fringes while the bravest of the lot attempted to pry small talk out of him.  </p><p>What he wanted, what he’s always wanted, is the Barns.</p><p>Enter one dickbag older brother.</p><p>And now here’s the situation: trapped in a cyclical hell of Declan’s making (because it really is all his fault, when you get down to it), his only ally a guy that hates his guts enough to spite both Ronan and himself in the process. The shiniest of Gansey’s shiny new Harvard friends, the one that’s destined to stick.</p><p>Drink up.</p><p>If Mom were here she’d say there’s a higher purpose to it all, that God has some great big plan in mind and that Ronan’s suffering is not without reason. Ronan doesn’t buy that, though. His faith in the Big Man’s “mysterious ways” went right out the window the minute He took Mom out the game, and now the only thing he’s sure of is that God doesn’t know <em>what </em>he’s doing up there. God’s a feral kid tearing the heads off her Barbie dolls for the fun of it. Ronan’s turmoil must be prime time Saturday night TV, up there.</p><p>Ronan finishes his beer, looks out at the city as the sun goes down. It’s pretty but it’s not home. In a better world he’d be watching this same sun from the top of a barn shed, nothing but trees and empty fields for miles. No people, either. Total bliss.</p><p>He’d be safe from dodgy elevators and death-trap stairs, from gridlocked traffic and bustling crowds that don’t know how to stop and breathe in the air and just <em>be</em>. He’d be safe from the letdown in Gansey’s eyes when Ronan wanders home drunk the fifth night in a row with no mention of where he’s been, or from that bright-eyed gaze Gansey reserves for Adam Parrish alone. He’d be safe from the way Adam looks at him, not curious or apprehensive, just bored, like he sees right through Ronan’s tough guy façade right to the deadbeat loser at the core.</p><p>He wouldn’t be safe from his own head, though. There’s always that.</p><p>-</p><p>He climbs downstairs several hours later, bracing himself before entering the apartment.</p><p>It’s jam-packed and loud and chaotic, the latter two things Ronan wouldn’t necessarily mind so long as he were the cause of it. Bodies shuffle past him without so much as looking his way, because they don’t know him and don’t have any reason to. He’s a stranger here in his own home. But then, it’s not really his home, is it? Parrish was right; he’s a stowaway.</p><p>Gansey is in here somewhere, fretting over the guests like a mother hen. Always so desperate to be appreciated, to be liked, as if any of these assholes really care about him as a person and aren’t just clinging on for the sacred networking connections the Gansey name promises. They argued about this the first night, or at least Ronan thinks they did; most of that night is still a drunken blur.</p><p>“Hey asshole,” a voice shouts from across the room. “Where have you been?”</p><p>Ronan makes his way over, only because it’s Blue Sargent and she’s absolutely the type to follow him around the flat yelling obscenities all night until he offers her a response. Not that that’s ever happened before.</p><p>“I was busy.” He stops a few feet away, trades his empty can for a fresh one. Blue grabs it off him before he can pull the tab.</p><p>“Too busy to show up in time for Gansey’s birthday?”</p><p>“His birthday’s three whole days away; this shit’s all for show.”</p><p>“You’re unbelievable,” Blue says in that haughty tone she loves to bring out whenever she thinks she’s got the moral high-ground. Most of the time she does, but that’s besides the point. “Gansey has been freaking out for hours, do you realize that? Henry and I had to talk him down before he called the cops.”</p><p>“Why the hell would he be worried?”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t he be worried? You turned your phone off. And then your brother’s been calling, says he’s up at the Freepoint staying and the two of you had some kind of fight. And then Adam got here a few hours ago and said you showed up at his work talking all kinds of crazy shit about dying. What were any of us supposed to think?”</p><p>Parrish, that goddamn conniving snitch. Ronan’s going to kill him when he sees him, if fate doesn’t kill him first.</p><p>“I was on the roof,” he says.</p><p>“You were <em>on the</em>–”</p><p>“Jesus, not like that. I was just sitting. I like sitting up there to…”</p><p>“To what?”</p><p>“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“Well clearly it does matter if it was enough for you to blow off Gansey’s–”</p><p>“<em>To think</em>, Sargent. There’s no peace in this goddamn city. I like to sit up there and think.”</p><p>She purses her lips. Looks him over, like she’s sure that whatever he’s not saying is going to show itself on his skin. He crosses his arms and stares her down. A stand-off like this could go on for hours if they both allowed it – it’s happened often enough in the past – but he knows this time she’ll cave. As much as Blue likes to pretend otherwise, she’s always enjoyed a good party. Last thing she’ll want is to be stuck here on Lynch patrol all night.</p><p>“Well,” she says, after a long minute of silence. “Next time you decide to do some thinking, maybe<em> think</em> about keeping your phone on.”</p><p>“Noted,” he says. She shakes her head and walks away. She takes the can with her, but whatever, he doesn’t want it anymore. He wants this party to end so he can shift out of this liminal space he’s in. He wants to die and stay dead, which maybe proves his friends right to worry. He thinks anyone would be driven mad by this shit, though, past experiences be damned. Even Parrish is probably begging someone to put him out his misery at this point. Maybe that’s why he’s playing dumb and refusing Ronan’s offer of help.</p><p>Ronan looks around half-heartedly for Gansey. He thinks apologies might be in order but he’s never been very good with those. Maybe a simple <em>I’m here and I didn’t try to blow my brains out</em> will smooth things over.</p><p>Not like it matters. He’ll keep his phone on in the next round.</p><p>There’s no good reason to stay here just because this is where it all started. In fact, maybe that’s all the better reason to go. Maybe this thing is like the monster from that horror movie he watched last month, a walking predator, relentless but real fucking slow. Ronan could outrun it. Maybe not tonight – he knows what’ll happen if he gets behind the wheel right now – but next time. If he leaves the city early enough, he might make it somewhere this curse can’t follow.</p><p>Ronan looks around, considers returning to the rooftop.</p><p>From somewhere behind him, a voice shouts, “Lynch!”</p><p>Not just any voice. It’s the voice of a hysterical Adam Parrish.</p><p><em>Now </em>he wants to talk? Bit late for that, isn’t it? They’re definitely dead meat now.</p><p>“<em>Lynch.</em>” He’s stopped right beside Ronan but Ronan isn’t looking. Not at his wide, panicked eyes or at the furrows lining his fine-boned face, definitely not. He’s the one that wasted hours of their time. He doesn’t get to sound like that, all desperate and anxious and broken up about it. “Lynch, you need to talk to me. You need to tell me I’m not losing my mind.”</p><p>“You’ve been crazy a long time, man. You only just noticed?”</p><p>“That was – You were there, right? In the elevator? That was real, right?”</p><p>“You tell me,” Ronan says. “You’re the one that was so sure last night never happened. Gansey nearly filed a missing persons report on me because of the shit you told him, thanks for that.”</p><p>“What?” Parrish frowns. He sounds as confused as he did back at Home Depot. “Ronan, I just woke up. We were in the elevator and we fell and now I’m right back here again. I thought – It was real, right? I need to know this isn’t just in my head.”</p><p>And that…that’s something. Not at all what Ronan was expecting. He studies Parrish very carefully, looking for some sign that he can’t be trusted, that he’s pulling Ronan’s leg. He doesn’t see any. Parrish looks half-demented, nothing like the dead-eyed Parrish from this afternoon.</p><p>Something like hope flickers in Ronan’s chest.</p><p>“Jesus, chill the fuck out,” he says. “You think your imagination’s that good? Of course it was real.”</p><p>Parrish lets out a deep breath, like a relative in the waiting room who’s just gotten some positive news. He runs his elegant hands all the way over his face and through his already-messy hair. He really does look a lot worse for wear than Ronan, and it occurs to Ronan that he might not be the biggest mess in the room for once. What a sad turn of events that is.</p><p>“You really just woke up?” he asks, because he needs to be sure.</p><p>Parrish nods, face grim. “It’s the same thing every time. I wake up in Gansey’s room just before nine. Henry’s playing Madonna, Blue’s in the middle of some debate, <em>you’re </em>fighting with Gansey. Or you were the first time. Do you remember that?”</p><p>“You don’t have to recap the whole night, Parrish. I was there.”</p><p>“Right. You were there.” His eyes glaze over in that way they do when he’s thinking too hard about something. “When did <em>you</em> wake up?”</p><p>“This morning.” Mornings, afternoons, all technicalities really.</p><p>“And you came looking for me,” Parrish says, putting the pieces together. “But I wasn’t really me.”</p><p>“What is this now, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? Of course you were still you.”</p><p>“But I wasn’t<em> this</em> me. I was Other Me. Alternate Me.” He shakes his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”</p><p>“None of this makes sense. We wouldn’t be here if shit was still making sense.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, is that supposed to be helpful?”</p><p>“Hey, I’m not the one malfunctioning and bringing <em>alternate mes</em> into the equation. That’s sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, man, get it together.”</p><p>“God. <em>God</em>.” Parrish smacks his head against the wall, brilliant, because they haven’t had enough head injuries to go between them. “Why did it have to be you?”</p><p><em>Well, fuck you too, Parrish</em>.</p><p>“Didn’t take you for an elitist,” Ronan snarls.</p><p>“That is not the point I was making and you know it.” Parrish lets out a long-suffering sigh, as if Ronan’s just being difficult. But how <em>would</em> he know it? He doesn’t know the first thing about what goes on in Parrish’s head. Doesn’t want to, either.</p><p>“Forget it,” Parrish says. “Let’s just move on. We need to find a quiet place to sit and talk through what we know.”</p><p>“A quiet place?” Ronan looks around the room and then back at Parrish, as if to say <em>Good luck with that</em>.</p><p>“Well, what would you suggest?”</p><p>“My suggestion is we get the fuck out of here before a plane crashes through the window.”</p><p>“That’s not–”</p><p>“Do not say it. Do not fucking jinx us.”</p><p>“I’m not saying it’s unlikely,” Parrish protests, “but it’s a lot less likely than getting hit by a truck the minute we step outside.”</p><p>That might be true, who’s the say, but Ronan would still rather take his chances outside. At least out there he won’t be subjected to Henry Cheng’s ironically upbeat playlists.</p><p>“Listen, I’m gonna get a drink,” Parrish says. “Don’t disappear on me, okay?”</p><p>Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there’s anywhere he could go.</p><p>Ronan leans one foot against the wall and waits. He wonders if Gansey has noticed him talking with Parrish, decides he’s better off not knowing. He pulls his phone out his pocket and turns it on, ignores all the missed calls and texts and starts up a game of Fun Race. It’s dumb as shit but Matthew showed it to him once during one of their weekly Sunday lunches, and Ronan had to grudgingly admit he found it a little addictive. It’s a solid way to pass time, at least. About the only thing his piece of crap phone is useful for.</p><p>It’s an endless cycle of mind-numbing repetition, playing the same level over and over and dying every time until dumb luck strikes and you finally come out on top. Not exactly a break from reality, but at least there’s an end to each level clear in sight.</p><p>He reached level 100 last night but that’s all been erased. Level 94 it is. Last he heard, Matthew was still stuck on 89. They used to compare scores every Sunday, but family Sundays haven’t been a thing for months now, not since Ronan moved. No more chapel, no more lunch, no more Barns rendezvous. Even Christmas was cancelled. Suited Declan; he’s always been a Scrooge.</p><p>Ronan fucks the level up again, groans and turns it off. He looks around the room for Parrish. He’s still in the kitchen taking his damn time, filling a glass up at the sink. Out of the corner of Ronan’s eye, he catches some other movement. Guys arguing, other side of the breakfast bar, drunk. One of them flings something at a cardboard target on the fridge. He flings a <em>steak knife</em> at the fridge. He misses by a mile.</p><p>Cold dread passes through Ronan’s gut.</p><p>He’s stepping forward before he’s consciously aware of any decision to move, his feet well ahead on him. <em>All good,</em> he thinks, <em>just trying something new, being cautious, what fire, there is no fire.</em></p><p>Another guy stumbles into position, makes a lazy throw. The knife clinks against the sink beside Parrish. He doesn’t move an inch. Just stands there, back turned, gulping down water like a dying man in the desert.</p><p>
  <em>Jesus shitting Christ.</em>
</p><p>“Parrish!” he shouts. No response. “Damn you, Parrish!”</p><p>Ronan sprints, instinct propelling him through the crowd. He gets an arm around Adam and ignores his protests, just <em>shoves</em>. There’s a shout, a whoosh of air, metal in Ronan’s peripheral, and then they’re crashing to the floor, glass shattering beside them.</p><p>“Holy shit!” someone screams above them. “Holy shit, fuck, dude, did you – That was–”</p><p>Beside him, Adam lets out a soft groan of pain. Ronan rolls over, sits up on his ass, surveys the damage. There’s water and broken glass shards everywhere, and a steak knife, bloody at the tip.</p><p>His eyes swing towards Adam but he’s fine, he’s breathing. His ear’s bleeding, must’ve been lightly grazed in the chaos.</p><p><em>The chaos</em>, fuck. Ronan swallows back a laugh at the utter absurdity of it all. His entire life is a joke.</p><p>“Safer inside my ass,” he says, and this time Adam doesn’t protest, just stares horror-struck at the mess of glass on the floor. “You ready to get out of here now?”</p><p>“Fuck,” he says weakly, and nods.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Absolutely not. Have you lost your mind? I am not going in that thing ever again.”</p><p>“You wanna walk down ten flights of stairs, be my guest,” Ronan says. He’s standing by the elevator, hand raised to press the button, because he is a madman with a death wish, apparently.</p><p>Adam hadn’t been sure Ronan would even bother helping him. He’d woken up in Gansey’s room again, mind reeling from both the trauma of what just occurred and the shock of who was there with him, and all he could think was <em>why him?</em> Because Ronan doesn’t give a shit about him. Because there’s no guarantee Ronan wouldn’t catch sight of him and look the other way. But for whatever strange reason – call it self-preservation, or a radical change of heart – he’s here. Which is a good thing, Adam reminds himself, as he stares Ronan down with a mix of irritation and astonishment. It’s a step forward, even if Ronan appears hellbent on squandering the limited time they have.</p><p>“I’m fine with taking the stairs,” he says, when it becomes apparent that Ronan has no intentions of budging.</p><p>“Well, I’m not.”</p><p>“You’d rather take the metal death trap than use your legs?”</p><p>“You haven’t tripped down the stairs yet, have you?”</p><p>Adam frowns. He never considered that possibility, which is surely a huge oversight on his end. Falling down stairs isn’t that unheard of. It’s a lot more heard of than being fatally struck by a steak knife wielded by drunken classmates, at least.</p><p>Still. The memory of being trapped in that metal box, body tensed for the inevitable crash, is so fresh in his mind, barely thirty minutes old. The sudden drop, the screams of those around him, the utter loss of control...</p><p>Not an experience he wants to repeat.</p><p>“It can’t be worse than the elevator,” he says with a note of finality, but Ronan just shakes his head, ever the contrarian.</p><p>“It is when it happens three times in a row. Why do you think I was even in that elevator in the first place?”</p><p>“Wait, are you saying normally you’d take the stairs?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. Adam takes that as an affirmative, as an <em>I know it sounds crazy so I won’t actually say it</em>, although that might be giving Ronan far too much credit.</p><p>“Why the hell would you do that?”</p><p>“Why the hell do you think? It’s exercise, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Do you have something against gyms?”</p><p>“Do I look like some bougie asshole to you?”</p><p>Adam shoots him a withering glance and says, “How much did you pay for those jeans?”</p><p>“Two hundreds and fifteen dollars.” To Ronan’s credit he doesn’t look the least bit ashamed. Gansey would stammer out the answer and then fret over how terrible it makes him look, how ridiculous it is to throw away hundreds of dollars so casually, and <em>actually, you know what, Adam, I need to be the change I wish to see in the world, I need to donate that same equivalent to a charity for children in poverty. You’ve inspired me. </em>Adam would rather not inspire anyone, thanks very much. The only thing more annoying than a rich guy that flaunts his wealth is a rich guy that’s embarrassed to have it.</p><p>“You paid $215 for a single pair of jeans and you don’t think you’d fit in at the ‘bougie asshole’ gym?”</p><p>“I’m a complex man, Parrish. Don’t try and pigeon-hole me.”</p><p>Adam rolls his eyes. Ronan is infuriating, Ronan is absurd, Ronan is going to get them both killed in record time.</p><p>He saved Adam’s life, though, which is something. Adam can’t ditch him now; he owes him one.</p><p>“Fine,” Adam says. “We won’t take the stairs. We’ll just sit here till the apartment catches fire.”</p><p>Ronan’s eyes gleam. “What if I told you there’s another way down?”</p><p>-</p><p>“You’re kidding me.”</p><p>“This shit is foolproof, Parrish. I do it all the time.”</p><p>“The fact that you expect that knowledge to fill me with confidence just proves how sorely lacking in self-awareness you are.”</p><p>Ronan laughs. It’s a nice laugh, Adam supposes, when he’s not following it up with some nasty comment. There are a lot of things about Ronan that are nice when you view them as individual components and not as part of the whole surly package. Lean muscles, a savage sneer, all sharp angles you could cut yourself on. Adam’s not blind, although he really should be immune by now. Jerks are only hot in the movies.</p><p>“Look,” Ronan says. “This shit’s safe as life, swear on it. But if you’re too chickenshit–”</p><p>“Nice try, Lynch,” Adam says. “You’re not forcing me into this by playing the chicken card.”</p><p>“Who said anything about forcing you? I just mean, if you need to sit this one out…”</p><p>“God, you’re such an asshole.” Adam takes a cautionary step onto the fire escape and winces. He’s never liked heights. He likes them even less now, given the current circumstances. Not to mention, being deaf in one ear doesn’t exactly lend itself to good balance.</p><p>Surely this isn’t necessary. Surely the stairs would be nowhere near as reckless. Surely he’s not going to risk his life just to prove something to Ronan Lynch.</p><p>“Any time of the day, Parrish.”</p><p>Adam sighs. He is definitely going to risk his life just to prove something to Ronan Lynch.</p><p>He takes another careful step forward and then grips the railing with both hands. His eyes catch on a movement from down below,<em> several stories</em> below. They’re so high up. So much higher up than he remembered. At least when he fell out the window, he didn’t have time to contemplate how much it would hurt.</p><p>He tells himself, <em>Don’t think</em>. He tells himself, <em>The sooner you move the sooner it’s over</em>. He takes another step, onto the first stair, then another. Another. There aren’t that many left. He’s almost at the next landing, and from there he just has to do the same thing all over again, and again, and again, until he’s safe on the ground. Simple. Not a problem.</p><p>He takes a few more steps, reaches the next landing and lets out a giddy laugh. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine. He makes his way down the next step. He is <em>fine.</em></p><p>“I’m gonna start coming down now,” Ronan shouts from up above him.</p><p>Okay, spoke too soon.</p><p>“Don’t come down,” Adam shouts back. “Don’t you dare!”</p><p>“These things are designed to hold, like, a hundred people or something. You’re good.”</p><p>“Those numbers do not sound accurate.”</p><p>“Ten, then. Same difference.”</p><p>“That’s a pretty enormous fucking difference!”</p><p>“Jesus. I was trying to be reassuring!”</p><p>“Well you are a lot less reassuring than you seem to think you–!”</p><p>Adam’s foot slips. He lets out a strangled yelp and hugs the railing. There’s a clanging sound from above – Ronan on the landing, Ronan making his way down the stairs. Goddammit.</p><p>“What part of ‘don’t come down’ did you not understand?” he shouts.</p><p>Ronan does not respond because Ronan is a law unto himself, right, damn Adam for forgetting that. He pictures all the potential ways this could go – the landing giving way beneath their feet, the whole construction coming loose from the wall, Ronan barrelling into him and sending them both sideways, <em>god</em>, so many different ways of dying, all equally as distressing as the next–</p><p>“You’re overthinking it,” Ronan says, and he’s close, real close, maybe only a few steps behind Adam now. “Less thinking, more moving.”</p><p>“Oh great advice, can’t believe I never considered that.”</p><p>“Parrish.” And now he’s right behind Adam, warm breath on Adam’s neck, which isn’t doing anything to slow Adam’s heartbeat at all. “You’re fine, c’mon. Nowhere to go but down, right?”</p><p>Adam nods. No time to contemplate why Ronan’s being semi-decent for once. He takes another slow step, and another, and Ronan is right behind him the whole time. If Adam falls then Ronan’s either going to stop him or go falling with him. If Ronan falls then Adam is definitely going down with him, and that shouldn’t be reassuring. It’s not reassuring. But he tells himself, <em>Now it</em>’<em>s inevitable. You can’t fight what’s inevitable</em>, and somehow, miraculously, they make it to the ground in one piece.</p><p>His legs feel like jelly. He shakes them off and takes in big, heaving gasps of night air. They made it outside. That’s a start.</p><p>“See, what did I tell you?” Ronan says. “Foolproof.”</p><p>He knocks his foot against the bottom rung. A loud clang reverberates down the street. Adam grimaces, waits for the whole structure to come crumbling down on their heads, but nothing happens. They’re safe, for now.</p><p>He’s about to ask what the plan is, if there even is one, but Ronan’s already on the move, taking quick, decisive steps to the top of the street. He rushes to catch up, decides not to question him. It doesn’t matter where they go, not really. Anywhere is as safe as everywhere, because apparently logic doesn’t apply to their lives anymore. Apparently their lives now abide by the same rules as shitty horror films, and isn’t that a comfort?</p><p>They walk three blocks in a silence that’s less awkward than it is contemplative, Adam’s mind ablaze with questions that he’s sure Ronan won’t have the answers to. What does it mean that it’s not just him anymore, that they’re both trapped in this uncanny situation together? Just two people with little in common beyond a mutual friend and forced attendance at said friend’s birthday party. Why them, why now? What’s the link?</p><p>There’s a way forward here but Adam’s not seeing it. The path is murky, rear view mirrors in the midst of a storm.</p><p><em>This is a step in the right direction</em>, he reminds himself. <em>You are going to figure this out.</em></p><p>They round the corner onto a busy-ish commercial street, all restaurants and bars and nightclubs. Student central. He’s not twenty-one for another five months and has never bothered to get himself a fake ID. Never needed one – it’s not like anyone was lining up to take the teetotaller out for a night on the town. No doubt Ronan will have some choice words to say about that. <em>Don’t you ever get tired of being a boring-ass stick in the mud, Parrish? Do you even know what fun is? </em>He tenses for the inevitable argument but Ronan just keeps walking, no second glances to be spared for any of the venues.</p><p>He stops outside some door at the end of the street. A late-night diner, by the looks of it. At Adam’s raised eyebrow, he says, “What? I’m starving.”</p><p>Adam skipped dinner in the halls to come straight to Gansey’s party and has had nothing but a measly chocolate bar since breakfast (last week? this morning?) so he’s not about to start complaining. Plus, from what he can tell by glancing through the window, it’s fairly quiet. They’ll be able to talk things over. Killing two birds with the one stone, and all. He shrugs, and Ronan opens the door.</p><p>Inside is neon-lit, all bright block colours and vintage décor on the walls, retro Americana for the hipster crowd. He catches sight of a James Dean art deco print on the wall and resists the urge to snort.</p><p>There are a handful of patrons scattered around, young artsy types with their oversized glasses and patterned eyesore shirts. Ronan in his all-black get-up sticks out like a sore thumb, but he’s either oblivious to the contrast or doesn’t give a damn.</p><p>Adam waits till they’ve been seated and the effusive middle-aged waitress has read them the specials and taken their drinks orders before glancing up at Ronan. He’s slouched in the booth across the table, already looking back. He raises an eyebrow. Adam turns away, peruses the menu, attempts to find the words.</p><p>“This is fucked,” he settles on.</p><p>Ronan drums his hands on the table. He taps at the floor in time with his drumming hands, and Adam thinks he understands now why Ronan was so desperate to get outside. He’s like a captive animal beating the bars of his cage.</p><p>“Fucked isn’t the word I’d use,” he says after several seconds.</p><p>“What would you call it, then?”</p><p>“<em>Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat</em>,” Ronan drawls, sounding both arrogant and bored. Adam rolls his eyes. He almost forgot what Ronan was, where he came from. He might hide it well but he’s every bit as much the private schoolboy as Gansey.</p><p>“You can pull Latin proverbs out of your ass but somehow I’m the elitist?”</p><p>“It means–”</p><p>“I know what it means, asshole.”</p><p>“You know Latin?” Ronan sounds almost impressed. Adam’s not going to share the embarrassing truth of how he’d studied Latin with the hopes of being accepted into the prestigious private school that taught it, how he’d kept up the practice even when the placement fell through, desperate to maintain that connection, the illusion of success. <em>This was mine, if only for a moment. This was mine once and it will be again.</em></p><p>Probably Ronan would mock him, if he knew. How embarrassing, to try so hard.</p><p>“I took a class last semester,” he says instead, which isn’t a lie. “Anyway, besides the point. I’m not convinced God has anything to do with this.”</p><p>“Then who’s responsible?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Adam shrugs, twirling the menu in his hand. “Theology’s never been my thing.”</p><p>“Damn heretic.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, did we teleport back to the Middle Ages?”</p><p>Ronan ignores that jibe, says, “Well what else could it be, then? You think there’s a scientific explanation for this shit?”</p><p>“You think there’s a <em>Biblical</em> explanation for this shit?”</p><p>“Dude, have you read the Bible? God loves fucking with people’s heads. He’s bored as shit up there.”</p><p>“Oh, and that’s all ancient scripture, I suppose?” Adam says with a wry quirk to his brow “That’s all in the Bible?”</p><p>“That<em> is</em> the Bible. Fucking Job and shit. Abraham and Isaac – even your heathen ass must know that one.”</p><p>Adam does know that one but he’s curious to hear how Ronan tells it, editorializations and all. He opens his mouth to ask for details, but then catches sight of the waitress heading their way and thinks better of it.</p><p>“You boys ready to order?” she asks, setting their drinks down. Adam’s barely even considered the menu, but he quickly picks it up, skim reads the first page and lists off the cheapest thing he can find that’s not an appetizer. Ronan, a stranger to money-related anxieties, asks for two classic cheeseburgers and a side of fries.</p><p>Adam waits till the waitress is gone and then says, “You really needed two whole burgers?”</p><p>“It’s Day of Indulgence,” Ronan says. “Be lucky I didn’t ask for five.”</p><p>“Two minutes ago it was Day of Divine Punishment.”</p><p>“No, no, no, you’ve got it backwards. It’s not about being punished, it’s about being <em>tested</em>.”</p><p>“Tested for what, exactly?”</p><p>“Fucking herpes, man, I don’t know.”</p><p>“Oh, God didn’t share that part with you?”</p><p>“God doesn’t share shit. I told you already, He’s trolling us for kicks.”</p><p>And yet Adam’s the heretic, that makes sense. “Let me guess: your dislike for authority figures stems from being kicked out of Sunday school at a formative age.”</p><p>Ronan grins, teeth bared. Adam takes it back; that smile is not nice, it’s infuriating. He can’t tell if Ronan actually believes what he’s saying, if edgy Catholic is yet another facet to his identity or if it’s an act he’s playing up just to keep Adam on his toes. <em>You think you know me but you’ll never know me. I cannot be pigeonholed.</em></p><p>Adam takes a big drink of cola. He might not be a believer but maybe there’s something to all this Bible talk. Maybe Ronan has a point, in a roundabout sense.</p><p>“What if this <em>is</em> a test of some sort,” he says, carefully gauging Ronan’s reaction. “What if it’s a test and we keep failing it?”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t say anything, just watches him, considering. Adam feels the need to continue: “I mean, think about it. What do we have in common?”</p><p>“We both like Dick.”</p><p>“Right, exactly. We like Gansey, and–”</p><p>“Not that dick.”</p><p>Jesus Christ. Adam feels his cheeks heat up. He’s not even going to ask how Ronan knew, because the answer is obvious, the same way Adam knew about him. The answer is back at Gansey’s flat ordering overpriced pizza as they speak. Adam hopes it never arrives.</p><p>“Are you always this crass?”</p><p>“Are you always this uptight?”</p><p><em>Don’t bite, don’t bite, don’t bite</em>. He takes another long sip of soda. “Fine, so we have one thing in common. Besides the point–”</p><p>“What’s your blood type?”</p><p>“How is that relevant?”</p><p>“We could have the same blood type, you don’t know.”</p><p>“I’m pretty sure we’re not trapped in some freaky time loop because we share the same blood type.”</p><p>“We’re both from Virginia,” Ronan lists off on his fingers. “We both hates parties. We both hate socializing at parties–”</p><p>“You are not as funny as you think you are.”</p><p>“Who said I’m trying to be funny? I’m just making sure we leave no stone unturned here.”</p><p>Adam clenches his fist around the soda. He counts to three, gathers his resolve, and then says, “Besides the point. We were both at Gansey’s party.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“So, that doesn’t seem like a hell of a coincidence to you? You don’t think it’s possible that whatever’s happening to us started at that party?”</p><p>“A lot of people were at that party, Einstein. I don’t see anyone else doing somersaults down the stairs.”</p><p>“Because it’s not about them,” Adam says. “It’s about us. Think of it like this: let’s say something was supposed to happen that first night, something involving us. But we messed things up. We didn’t do what we were meant to do before we died, so now we have to keep repeating things till we get it right.”</p><p>“Like a video game?”</p><p>“Right, just like a video game.”</p><p>“So what’s the objective then?” Ronan asks. “You think we’re stuck like this till we get Gansey the right birthday cake?”</p><p>“Bigger than that,” he says. “It has to be bigger. Maybe someone needed our help–”</p><p>“Jesus.” Ronan snorts. His face twists into a snakelike sneer, venom on his lips, poised to strike. “That’s your answer to this? You think you’ve been resurrected to fulfil your civic duty, become Captain fucking America?”</p><p>“I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” Adam snaps. He messes around with the straw in his glass, cheeks flush with a brutal combo of embarrassment and indignation. Maybe it is stupid but what right does Ronan have to criticize? At least Adam’s trying to piece things together. At least he’s not just sitting here cracking jokes, wasting everybody’s time.</p><p>“Maybe the point is there is no point,” Ronan says. “Maybe this time we’ll give ourselves aneurysms trying to think of the point.”</p><p>“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have come looking for me.”</p><p>“Maybe I was bored.”</p><p>“Right, because I’m exactly who you’d turn to for entertainment.”</p><p>Ronan looks ready to respond, probably to say something cruel and cutting that Adam won’t want to hear, but he’s interrupted by the return of the waitress.</p><p>“Here you go, boys,” she says, setting their food down on the table. “Anything else I can get you?”</p><p>“We’re good, ma’am, thanks.” Adam smiles politely and picks up a handful of fries. It’s not like Ronan’s going to eat them all.</p><p>Ronan takes a massive bite out of his cheeseburger, munches deliberately, and then, when the waitress is out of hearing distance, says, “Suck up.”</p><p>Adam flings a fry at him. Ronan leans sideways and catches it in his mouth like a performing seal. He smiles victoriously.</p><p>“Show off,” Adam says, suppressing a smile of his own. He’s not impressed, not in the slightest, but he does throw another fry.</p><p>They’re halfway through their meal when his phone buzzes in his pocket, second time this night. He takes it out just to check the time. He’s not going to answer it, not with Ronan right here within earshot, watching. He’ll need to pick up eventually, though. He hasn’t spoken to her since the first night. Maybe if he tells her what’s been happening to him, she’ll have something more substantial to say.</p><p>If she doesn’t just hang up.</p><p>The phone stops ringing. He sets it down on the table, ignores Ronan’s eyes on him. He picks up his grilled cheese sandwich, takes a bite. Chews. Swallows.</p><p>The phone rings again.</p><p>“Who is it?” Ronan asks through a mouthful of fries. “Your crazy ex?”</p><p>“Were you raised in a barn?”</p><p>“Fuck you, man. I was raised at <em>The </em>Barns.” At Adam’s blank look, he says, “Family farm.”</p><p>“Oh.” It’s about the last thing he would’ve pictured. Ronan Lynch, wannabe-punk asshole extraordinaire…and country boy? Doesn’t fit, which is all the more reason it must be true; every new fact he learns about Ronan seems to throw all preconceived notions into question.</p><p>He tries to imagine what it must’ve been like. Peaceful, no doubt. Well-off family like Ronan’s, they would’ve had farmhands to do all the heavy lifting. Would’ve had yards and yards of wide open fields to play in, to get lost in. Wouldn’t have been like the trailer with everyone breathing the same air, tripping over one another, stifling claustrophobia driving Adam to seek escape even when his father’s anger didn’t.</p><p>But it couldn’t have been perfect. Ronan left, after all, and it’s not like he’s made it secret how much he dislikes the city. Maybe him and his family never got along. He hates his brother, Adam knows that much. Maybe his parents were difficult, too. Adam’s not going to ask.</p><p>“If you’ve got beef with someone, we can fix that,” Ronan says, drawing Adam’s attention back to the phone. “You wanna cover the inside of their car in coyote urine? I’m all for it. The fuck they gonna do about it, anyway?”</p><p>“I know you want me to ask why on god’s name you have coyote urine on hand, but I really couldn’t care less.”</p><p>“Shouldn’t have to ask. You sold it to me.”</p><p>“What–?” But he did, didn’t he? Other him, alternate him. The version of him that isn’t trapped in this never-ending loop. God, he wishes he could’ve been a fly on the wall for that. Did Ronan pick out the weirdest shit on the shelves just to piss Adam off? He probably got himself kicked out. Adam probably laughed about it. He’s laughing about it now, although he still can’t wrap his head around two versions of himself existing at the same time, interacting with the same guy. It’s fundamentally wrong.</p><p>And anyway, why does Ronan get a whole day when Adam’s limited to a few hours? It’s hardly fair. If either of them is going to make use of the extra time, they both know it’s going to be him.</p><p>“I think you should wake me up tomorrow,” he says and Ronan gives him a look that says<em> English, please</em>. “I get to your apartment just before six. I don’t wake up till nine. But maybe if you woke me up first, it’d buy me some extra time.”</p><p>“How will I know it’s you and not your creepy ass body-snatched double?”</p><p>“Now who’s talking sci-fi mumbo-jumbo?”</p><p>He waves his arm in a way that says<em> that’s old news, stick to the point</em>.</p><p>“You’ll know it’s me,” he says. “It’ll be obvious.”</p><p>“I don’t know about that,” Ronan says. “You’re both rude as fuck.”</p><p>Adam flings another fry at him and just about <em>beams</em> when Ronan fails to catch it. All things considered, this night has been nowhere near as awful as anticipated.</p><p>-</p><p>They stop at a 24-hour convenience store on the way back, in a bid to kill time. There’s nothing Adam needs, and he doesn’t have much in the way of spare change anyway, so he wanders around the aisles, picking things up just to read the label. He’s sure he must look suspicious, even more so with Ronan in tow, but the guy at the front desk doesn’t bat an eyelid, too engrossed in his cellphone to spare them a second glance.</p><p>They’d debated where to go next, but facts are there aren’t a whole lot of options when it’s after eleven and they’re limited by either not having a fake ID or being too drunk to drive. Not that you can tell Ronan’s drunk, which was his argument, a damn stupid argument in any case but even worse given their unique circumstances.</p><p>“I’m not letting you get behind the wheel and kill us both,” Adam said. “If we’re driving anywhere, you’re giving me the keys.”</p><p>To which he responded, “You think I’m letting you get your hands on my car, you’re out of your damn mind.”</p><p>And Adam shrugged. Worth a try.</p><p>The current plan – if you can call it a plan – is to wander for a bit longer before heading back to the apartment, where hopefully the party will have died down a little. They’ve an unspoken agreement to stick together, at least for tonight. If they survive till tomorrow then Adam doesn’t know what they’ll do. Avoid elevators, that’s for certain.</p><p>“Cookie Dough or Phish Food?” Ronan calls out from the back of the store, where he’s half buried in one of the freezers.</p><p>“You can’t be serious. You just ate two whole cheeseburgers and a bunch of fries.”</p><p>“You stole half those fries.”</p><p>“To throw at you,” Adam says. “And most of them landed in your mouth.”</p><p>“Semantics. Cookie Dough or Phish Food?”</p><p>“Whatever. Cookie Dough.” He’s never tried the other one. Brand ice-cream is a luxury he resents paying for.</p><p>Ronan picks an ice-cream tub out the freezer and slams the door. He waves it up for Adam to see: Peanut Butter Cup.</p><p>“They don’t have Cookie Dough.”</p><p>“Then why ask?”</p><p>“I thought we were getting to know each other,” Ronan says, adopting an innocent wide-eyed expression, <em>how dare you question my earnest motives</em>. If anything it makes him look like even more of a shithead.</p><p>Adam flips him off and about-turns down the aisle. Cleaning supplies. Ronan’s going to need a whole lot of those to fix the apartment up, if tomorrow ever comes.</p><p>He’s halfway through comparing the different bleach brands on the shelves – how do they justify charging an extra dollar and 89 cents when the ingredients list is<em> near identical </em>– when his phone rings again. He looks up, but Ronan’s disappeared and no one else is around. He picks up.</p><p>“Adam? That you?”</p><p>“It’s me.”</p><p>“Been calling for days. You didn’t pick up.”</p><p>“I’ve been busy,” he says, feeling an ominous sense of déjà vu. He needs to take this off-script. “Real busy. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what’s been happening.”</p><p>There’s a long, strained silence on his mother’s end, and he wonders if she’s just going to ignore him after all. But then: “You think I don’t know what goes on at them fancy schools of yours?”</p><p>It’s a breakthrough. A minuscule breakthrough, but a breakthrough nonetheless. Indignation is more than placid indifference, is a step closer to interest.</p><p>It doesn’t matter, shouldn’t matter. He’s never going back there. He could get kicked out of Harvard tomorrow and he’d still never go back there.</p><p><em>I don’t care what she thinks,</em> he tells himself.<em> I never have.</em> The words taste hollow on the tip of his tongue.</p><p>“It’s not what you think,” he says before he can stop himself. “It’s – Well, like I said. You wouldn’t believe me.”</p><p>“Adam.” He thinks he hears a sigh on the other end, but the reception’s a little fuzzy. Maybe it’s nothing. “Adam, I called about that cheque. You sent it out yet?”</p><p>“Yeah, I did.” <em>Don’t let her hang up.</em> “Is Dad…I mean, is he…?”</p><p>“He’s still outta work.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“They’re saying it could be months before his back’s healed up.” Definite sigh now. “Don’t know how I’m supposed to keep on top of these damn bills. If it ain’t other thing it’s another. There’s only so far one wage goes, you know.”</p><p>“I’m doing what I can, Mom.”</p><p>“Mm. I’m sure.”</p><p>“Mom.” He knows it’s a mistake the moment he’s said it. She never did react well to pleas of his, her usual passive-aggressive mask slipping away to reveal something hostile, as though the very act of being called on to provide some measure of comfort for this child she’d brought into the world brought every bitter thought and regret to the core.</p><p>“Don’t act like you’re all broken up ‘bout it now,” she says, and Adam feels the air around him getting thinner. “You cared so much, you would’ve been right back here months ago to give a helping hand, bring in another wage. None of this sending handouts from up in that tower of yours.”</p><p>“That’s not fair. You know that’s not fair. I’m trying–”</p><p>“Course you always were selfish. Never had the time for anyone, always thought you was better than the rest of us. Always had notions. Everyone could see it in you. Why else you think they never wanted you hanging around? You made that bed for yourself, Adam, don't try and pretend–”</p><p>“Nobody fucking move!”</p><p>Adam drops the phone.</p><p>His mother’s still on the other end snarling something, but it’s distant, hazy, white noise. He stumbles to the end of the aisle, blood rushing in his ears, and finds the source of the commotion at the till: a man dressed all in black, balaclava covering his face, pointing a pistol at the shop attendant.</p><p><em>You have got to be kidding me</em>, he thinks a little hysterically. Surely no one is this unlucky.</p><p>He looks around but the guy’s alone, and his back is turned to Adam. Adam could sneak away, if he stays quiet. He could make it out the door.</p><p>But where’s Ronan?</p><p>“Everything in the till goes in the bag,” the robber says, shoving a backpack at the shop attendant. “And don’t try anything. You try anything, I’ll shoot everyone in this fucking store!”</p><p>Adam backs away. Sneaks to the top of the aisle and looks left, right, but no Ronan. He checks the aisle closest to the door but it’s similarly empty. Goddammit!</p><p>“I said in the bag!”</p><p>“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, please don’t shoot. Please. I have a family. Two daughters.”</p><p>“Just put the shit in the bag.”</p><p><em>There</em>, a flash of movement, second last aisle. He creeps past the freezers, careful, slow, and now he sees him, making his way down the aisle. Ronan turns around, catches Adam’s eye. Adam gestures to the right, to the door. Ronan shakes his head and turns back around. What the hell?</p><p>Adam trails after him, quick as he can manage without alerting anyone to their presence. He taps Ronan’s shoulder, gets him to spin around. <em>What’s your deal? </em>Ronan’s glare says. Adam points at the door and sends back a glare that’s equally as fierce. <em>Don’t try anything.</em> Ronan gestures to the robber, makes the universal symbol for <em>this dude’s out of his fucking mind</em>. Adam shrugs. <em>Not our problem. Let’s go</em>.</p><p>Ronan shakes his head. Takes one step into the blast zone.</p><p>Adam pulls him back.</p><p>“Let go,” Ronan hisses, but Adam just shakes his head and clings on harder. They didn’t make it this far just for Ronan to throw himself in front of a bullet. This guy’s all talk, anyway. He just wants his money. He’ll bolt the minute it’s safely in the bag, no need for anyone to intervene.</p><p>“The fuck is wrong with you?” Ronan says under his breath. “You wanna watch a man get his head blown off?”</p><p>“He isn’t gonna shoot anybody if you just keep out of it.”</p><p>“That’s what a coward says to help himself sleep at night.”</p><p>And that is just typical, isn’t it? All that time spent mocking Adam and his ideas, <em>Captain fucking America</em>, and here he is ready to throw himself into a fight that’s got nothing to do with him. Ronan’s such a hypocrite.</p><p>Adam presses a finger to his lips, but Ronan just rolls his eyes and says, “Let. Go.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Parrish–”</p><p>“I’m not letting you ruin this for us.”</p><p>“For fuck’s sake–”</p><p>Ronan forces his way out of Adam’s grip, too hard, and goes stumbling against the window. The robbers spins around, screaming, “I said nobody move!” He fires frantically, aiming at nothing and everything, a trigger-happy madman. The windows shatter and Ronan goes down in a sea of glass and bullets, and Adam can’t even tell if he’s been hit or not. He tries to run, tries to reach Ronan, but pain erupts in his chest, once, twice, and he staggers backward, a cry on his lips.</p><p>He’d always assumed that getting shot would be a quick and easy way to go, relatively painless as far as dying goes, but he was wrong, he was <em>so </em>wrong. It’s slow, brutal torture. He lies on the floor, blood pooling around him, helpless, shifting in and out of consciousness as the world spins on around him. He sees the armed robber jump over Ronan’s body and stumble out the doors, hears sirens on the street seconds, minutes, hours later. He doesn’t know. Time is irrelevant now.</p><p>He thinks he can make out Ronan’s hand moving amidst the blood on the floor but everything is so blurry now. Concentrating makes his head hurt, fireworks erupting behind his skull, but he tries his very best to cling on, to pay attention, to see…</p><p>Is he <em>flipping Adam off?</em></p><p>Screw this. Adam shuts his eyes.</p><p>-</p><p>There’s a pain in his cheek.</p><p>Adam groans and rolls over. The stinging sensation continues. It’s not sore, exactly, just annoying, almost as though someone is flicking at him with a –</p><p>He cracks one eye open. There’s someone sat beside him, a blurry imprint, flicking at his cheek with their nail.</p><p>“Parrish. Parrish. P-P-Parrish,” the man intones. Adam gets the feeling he’s been at this for a while.</p><p>He yawns and rubs at his eyes. The blurry imprint gradually comes into focus.</p><p>Ronan.</p><p>“Fucking finally,” he says when he realizes Adam has come to. “You sleep like the dead, you know that? It’s creepy as shit.”</p><p>“Will you stop doing that?”</p><p>“What, this?” He flicks Adam’s face again. Adam bats his hand away.</p><p>“What time is it?” he asks wearily.</p><p>“Ten past six. Are you Parrish’s creepy ass bodysnatched double?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Screw this. Don’t tell me I did all this for nothing.”</p><p>“Did what, exactly? You were only supposed to wake me up.”</p><p>Ronan’s face lights up. “So it <em>is</em> you.”</p><p>“Of course it’s me. I told you it would–”</p><p>Ronan pulls his pillow away.</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>“That’s for getting us both killed,” he says, and Adam climbs to his feet, seething, because that is just not on.</p><p>“I didn’t get us killed,” he snaps. “<em>You</em> got us killed. If you had just kept out of it like I said, we would’ve both been fine.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Ronan says, rolling his eyes like Adam’s the unreasonable one here, never mind that he was just trying to return the favour and save Ronan’s life like Ronan saved his, never mind that he wouldn’t have needed to do that at all if Ronan weren’t such a reckless, noble asshole that leaps before he thinks, and is it any wonder that Ronan keeps dying if he’s been pulling stunts like this the whole time? He clearly doesn’t have much in the way of impulse control. It’s no wonder Adam’s fate ended up tied up with his. <em>Someone </em>has to do the thinking around here, has to keep Ronan from throwing himself over the edge at every given opportunity –</p><p>Wait.</p><p>Adam thinks about everything he knows so far, all those disparate threads he’s been struggling to weave together. He thinks about him and Ronan, dying again and again, alone but also together. And weren’t they always together, even from the very start?</p><p>All this time he thought the answer to their problems lay at the party, but what if it’s been right in front of them this whole time? What if <em>this</em> is what they’re being tested for?</p><p>“Parrish? You in there?” Ronan waves a hand over his face.</p><p>“I think I know how this works,” he says. At Ronan’s questioning look, he adds, “I think if one of us dies, we both die.”</p><p>“Well, that’s reassuring.”</p><p>“It <em>is</em>,” Adam says, “because I think that’s what this is about. This whole time I thought there was something we should’ve been doing at the party. But don’t you get it?<em> This</em> is what we’re supposed to be doing. We have to keep each other from dying.”</p><p>It’s so obvious Adam can’t believe he didn’t think of it sooner. The link between them that’s been right in front of him all along – a fatal accident occurring at presumably the exact same time. There is no third party that needs their help. It’s just the two of them stuck in this mess together. He catches Ronan’s eye and grins, but he doesn’t look so amused. And that, well, that’s just not on. How can he still look so damn put out when Adam just figured out the key to getting back to normality?</p><p>“What’s with the face?” Adam says. “You think I’m wrong about this?”</p><p>“Nope, that actually makes a hell of a lot of sense,” he says. “But I think you’re ignoring the bigger problem here.”</p><p>“And what’s that?”</p><p>“That some crazy-ass mystical force is still hellbent on killing us,” Ronan says, and okay, that <em>is</em> still a problem, but at least now they know–</p><p>“I tripped down those stairs<em> three damn times</em>, Parrish. Now tell me how you plan on preventing that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I don't think a fancy high-rise apartment like Gansey's would even have a fire escape but mostly everything I write is self-indulgent, what's one thing more?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It really can’t be that difficult to keep somebody else from dying.</p><p>So long as Ronan<em> makes an effort.</em> No more challenging gun-wielding lunatics. No more thinking zero steps ahead. If he actually looks before he jumps then half the battle is won. Adam just has to keep an eye out for errant steak knives and speeding trucks, which is easily done. Right?</p><p>He’s still not sure. The theory makes a weird amount of sense on paper: both Ronan and him died at roughly the same time, in roughly the same place, and apparently whoever’s in charge of fate and other such bullshit has decided it wasn’t their time to go. Ergo, they help one another out, they break the loop. Yet he can’t help feeling there must be more to it than that, that there’s a bigger picture here that he’s still not seeing.</p><p>What else could it be, though? He’s overthinking it. This is clearly the right path; even Ronan agrees.</p><p>Not that Ronan agreeing has made him any more <em>agreeable</em>.</p><p>“I’m just saying,” Ronan says, like he hasn’t been <em>just saying</em> for the last ten minutes. He’s sitting on Gansey’s windowsill, long legs propped up awkwardly against the wall. Adam had him check the window was actually shut first; he didn’t go plummeting to his death just to watch Ronan make the same stupid mistake a few days later. “If fate wants you to die, you’re gonna die. Have you never seen a Final Destination movie before?”</p><p>“Can we not base our actions off what happens in horror movies?”</p><p>“Spoken like someone who’s never seen a Final Destination movie before.”</p><p>“I’ll repeat: we are not in a movie,” Adam says. “Now can you focus? We don’t have all night.”</p><p>“I’ll focus when you stop pacing the room like a madman. It’s hurting my brain just to look at you.”</p><p>Adam pauses mid-step. He never noticed he was doing that.</p><p>He retreats to the bed, sits down cross-legged and directs a pointed look at Ronan. <em>Better?</em> Ronan waves his hand in a mocking gesture of fealty. <em>Go on.</em></p><p>“Okay, like I was saying. I just think it’s a good idea for us both to know what we’re up against here.”</p><p>“And like I was saying, it won’t make a damn difference.”</p><p>“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” Adam says. “That’s no excuse not to try.”</p><p>“You already know what happened to me. You were there–”</p><p>“I was only there twice.”</p><p>“And what difference has that made?”</p><p>“Well, now we know to avoid the elevator and that specific store. <em>I</em> know not to lean out of windows and to look both ways when I’m crossing the street.”</p><p>“Exactly,” Ronan says. “You know fuck all.”</p><p>“I don’t know why you’re being so defensive when all I asked is how you died.”</p><p>“I’m not being defensive. I just think you’re wasting your time.”</p><p>He is definitely being defensive. Adam can’t work out why, though. He supposes Ronan’s original death must have been something wholly undignified, something he’s far too ashamed to fess up to. Maybe he choked to death on one of his cheeseburgers, or cracked his skull against the toilet. Adam hopes to god it wasn’t some weird sex thing.</p><p>There’s a tap-tap-tapping at the window, and Adam looks up to see an honest to god <em>bird </em>sitting outside. Ronan pulls the window open (“<em>What the hell, Lynch?</em>”) and in it swoops. It’s all-black, matching Ronan’s get-up, with beady little eyes that would be terrifying under different circumstances. A raven, or some other corvid.</p><p>The bird circles the room, ignoring Adam’s protests, before doubling back and perching on Ronan’s shoulder.</p><p>“Kerah!” it squawks. Ronan reaches up and pats a hand down its back.</p><p>“Is that…Do you have a <em>pet bird</em>?”</p><p>“She’s not a pet,” Ronan says. “She’s a loyal companion.”</p><p>“So a pet, then.”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t respond, too busy fussing over his creepy ass bird. It's a wondrous sight. Adam feels like he’s dreaming.</p><p>“She fell out her nest when she was a chick,” Ronan explains. “I couldn’t just let her die, so I took her in. She doesn’t need me anymore, though. She just likes to visit, don't you, you little attention whore?” He says that last part in a garbled baby voice.</p><p>Ronan Lynch, misanthropic asshole, edgy catholic, country boy, and now apparent animal lover, too. Adam doesn’t think anything could surprise him at this point. He watches Ronan hunch over the bird, cooing at it like it’s a kid in a pram. The sight of him stroking a gentle finger along its forehead, watching it with unabashed fondness, does something funny to Adam’s insides.</p><p>He clears his throat. “Does she have a name?”</p><p>“She’s called Chainsaw,” he says with a shit-eating grin.</p><p>Yeah, that checks out.</p><p>Someone knocks on the bedroom door and Adam turns towards it, surprised. He forgot they weren’t alone.</p><p>“Ronan?” Gansey calls from the other side. “Is that you in there?”</p><p>“Who’s Ronan?” Ronan says. “I don’t know a Ronan.”</p><p>The handle turns and Adam shoots Ronan a panicked look. <em>We don’t have time for distractions. </em>Ronan shrugs, <em>I don’t know what the fuck you expect me to do about it.</em> The door opens and in steps Gansey.</p><p>“Ronan, what are you – Oh, Adam,” Gansey says, as though stumbling across an unexpected discovery, as though he’s not the one that told Adam to come in here. “I didn’t realize…I thought you were asleep?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Adam says slowly. He looks at Ronan, who’s looking at Gansey, who’s looking back and forth between the two of them, brows drawn together.</p><p>“What’s all this?” he asks, when it becomes clear that neither Adam nor Ronan are about to offer up an explanation of their own volition.</p><p>“All what?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“The two of you don’t usually…”</p><p>“Don’t usually…?”</p><p>“Talk.” Gansey frowns. “I’m just going to come out and say it: there’s a rather strange energy in this room right now.”</p><p>“Strange energy?” Ronan scoffs. “Dude, you need to stop hanging around at Sargent’s hippie commune.”</p><p>“Ronan!”</p><p>Adam watches, a little awestruck, as Gansey launches into a defence of Blue’s “unconventional” family, which prompts Ronan to snark back about missing balls, which prompts Blue, from the other room, to weigh in on fragile masculinity, which prompts Gansey to apologize on behalf of all men, especially the ignorant men in this apartment right now, although he really feels like he’s proven himself to not be one of them, he took a gender studies class after all, which prompts Blue to list every unintentionally offensive comment Gansey’s made in the last two weeks alone, which prompts Henry, halfway through the door with a set of fancy speakers in hand, to ask what fresh hell he’s just stumbled into and if it’s not too late to walk away.</p><p>By this point Gansey’s already rushed off, tail between his legs, to smooth things over with Blue. Adam turns to Ronan, who hasn’t moved from his spot on the windowsill, and asks, “Did you instigate a gender war just to get Gansey off our backs?”</p><p>“Hey, give credit where it’s due – Gansey dug that hole for himself.”</p><p>“That’s…”<em> Funny, genius, shockingly impressive.</em> “Ridiculous,” he finishes lamely.</p><p>“It worked, didn’t it?” Ronan picks up his leather jacket, strewn carelessly over Gansey’s desk chair, and throws it on. Chainsaw squawks, pecks at Ronan’s face and then retreats out the window. “C’mon, get your shit together. We’ve got about five minutes til he suddenly remembers he’s in the middle of giving us the third degree.”</p><p>“Where is it we’re going, exactly?” Adam asks, although he’s already shoving his shoes on.</p><p>“Hell if I know. Anywhere’s better than here.”</p><p>“Last night begs to differ.”</p><p>“Last night we didn’t have these.” He waves a set of car keys.</p><p>“Are you sure you’re in a state to be driving?”</p><p>“Relax. I haven’t had a drink all day.”</p><p>Adam weighs all the options and decides Ronan might just have a point. Every death (well, Adam’s deaths at least) has happened in the general vicinity of the apartment. There’s no telling whether putting some distance between them and this place will have any effect, but it’s worth a try.</p><p>“All right.” He nods. “Let’s go.”</p><p>“To the fire escape?”</p><p>Adam curses. He takes it back; he hates everything about this plan.</p><p>They sneak past Gansey and Blue with zero difficulty and make it downstairs with significantly greater difficulty. <em>You’ve done this before</em>, Adam tells himself, hands shaking as he clings to the railing. <em>You can do it again</em>.</p><p>It might be worth overcoming his fear of the elevator if<em> this</em> is the alternative, but he’ll wait for Ronan to risk the stairs first before he takes any chances.</p><p>“How far away is the car?” Adam asks once they’re both on steady ground.</p><p>“It’s right there. In the parking lot.”</p><p>Of course. Luxury flats, private parking. “I hate you right now,” Adam says, and Ronan laughs smugly.</p><p>They double back to inside the apartment just as the elevator dings and the doors slide open and out steps Henry Cheng, empty plastic bags in hand.</p><p>“What’s all this about?” he asks, upon noticing them. “Leaving so soon?”</p><p>“None of your business,” Ronan snaps.</p><p>Henry doesn’t bat an eyelid, seemingly used to Ronan’s hostile ways by now. He looks to Adam and says, “I hope this clandestine engagement of yours is only temporary. The party won’t be quite the same without you, Parrish.”</p><p>Right. The party. With everything else going on right now he’s barely given it a second thought. It’s just not a priority anymore. Besides, what does it matter if he’s not there? Gansey has plenty of other friends, most of them a lot more fun and lively than Adam is. Henry’s presence alone is enough to fill up the whole house. Adam will not be missed.</p><p>“We’ll be back later,” he tells Henry, which is both true and not true. “Just got some last minute things to deal with.”</p><p>Henry looks between him and Ronan. Ronan glowers right back and then stomps away in the direction of the parking lot.</p><p>“Well.” Henry draws the word out. A slow smile spreads over his face. “This is an interesting development.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you mean.”</p><p>“I’m sure you don’t.”</p><p>He would argue his case, but what’s the point? Henry will forget all about this soon enough. He can believe whatever he wants for the next few hours.</p><p>“If Gansey asks what’s become of you, I assume you expect me to spin a wondrous web of deceit?” Henry calls out as Adam begins retreating. “If he asks if I’ve seen you I will simply deny all knowledge. I will simply say, ‘Parrish, Adam Parrish? As a matter of fact I heard him talking on the phone before he disappeared. Something about leaving the messy details for him to handle.’”</p><p>“Whatever works for you, man.”</p><p>“No, wait, I’ll tell him you asked me to pass along a message, that you’ve left a letter sealed and hidden in the library somewhere under the initial X...”</p><p>Adam carries on walking as Henry continues rambling about letters that spontaneously combust seconds after you read them. He tries not to picture the look on Gansey’s face when he learns about his friends bailing on his party, tries not to let the troubling image fill him with guilt. He has nothing to feel guilty about, after all. Gansey, like everybody else he meets tonight, is fated to forget.</p><p>-</p><p>They pull into a fast food drive-thru for dinner before crossing the Charles River into Boston. Despite living here for a year and a half, Adam’s only visited the city a handful of times. He’s never had much reason beyond simple curiosity to make the trip. Cambridge has everything he needs, and it’s not like he knows anyone who lives out here. He barely knows the people living in the dorm next door.</p><p>Ronan’s got his music on, some pulsing electronic shit that makes Adam’s ears bleed. Requesting a change in genre only convinced Ronan to turn it up louder, which Adam really should’ve known would happen.</p><p>“Are you really just flying blind right now?” he asks, because someone has to.</p><p>“I have <em>some</em> ideas.”</p><p>“Am I gonna hate them?”</p><p>He scoffs. So that’s a yes, then.</p><p>Sure enough, when they pull into a parking space downtown, Adam looks around with a growing sense of dismay. There's nothing noteworthy here, just industrial units and factories.</p><p>“This looks like a serial killer’s hideout,” Adam says.</p><p>“Ha.”</p><p>“No, really. What is this?”</p><p>“Will you relax? I know a guy.”</p><p>“You know a serial killer?”</p><p>Ronan directs them to the side entrance of one of the buildings, a ramshackle factory that’s surely abandoned. Has to be abandoned. It looks like it had its heyday in the fifties and hasn’t been cared for since.</p><p>Adam steps inside and is instantly met with music, the same brand of electronic shit from the car.</p><p>“You can’t be serious,” he says. “Is this some kind of illicit rave?”</p><p>“I don’t know what the fuck this is,” Ronan says, although he doesn’t look put out by it. “Czerny must be having one of his weird-ass parties again.”</p><p>“Wait. When you said you know a guy, did you mean he lives here?”</p><p>“He’s an art major. He goes to Tufts,” Ronan says derisively, as if that explains anything and doesn’t just bring up another hundred questions. Is Ronan’s friend squatting in an abandoned building for the sake of an art project? Did he buy this building for the sake of an art project? Adam hopes it’s neither. He hates this guy already.</p><p>Ronan leads them up a set of stairs, through twisting narrow corridors, and into the fray of things. It’s worse than the party they came from, bodies writhing all over the joint. Adam can’t see more than a foot in front of himself. How does anyone find this fun?</p><p>“A serial killer den would’ve been better than this,” Adam says.</p><p>“Lynch!” A hyperactive blond guy comes hurtling towards them and immediately tackles Ronan. Adam takes a careful step back.</p><p>“Czerny, you asshole!” Ronan says. “Get your bony elbow off my face.”</p><p>“Dude, you gotta start answering the phone,” blond guy says. “I’ve been calling you up for months! What are you doing up here?”</p><p>“Didn’t you hear? I live here now.”</p><p>“Bullshit! You’re messing with me.”</p><p>“Deadly serious. I’ve been here since October.”</p><p>“And you waited four months to visit?” He presses a hand to his heart, a motion of exaggerated hurt. Adam suspects him and Henry would get along.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. Jesus weeps for you.”</p><p>“What about the renovation project? How’s it going? Did you set up the studio yet? <em>Please</em> say you set up the studio.” </p><p>“Fuck, man, forget about that. It’s not – forget it.” A sideways glance at Adam. Adam gets the message; he steps out of hearing range.</p><p>Adam makes his way to the edge of the room, easier said than done when he can’t see a damn thing. He steps on a good few toes, get jostled in the side, and he resolves never to let Ronan have a say in where they go again.</p><p>He leans against the wall, taps his foot in time with the beat. Maybe if he was drunk or on something, he’d get it; he’s pretty sure there’s not a single sober person in this room.</p><p><em>Renovation project. Studio.</em> He wonders what that’s about. Ronan didn’t look happy to hear it brought up. It’s not Adam’s business, though. What does he care if Ronan’s got secrets? Adam has plenty of those too.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he catches someone staring at him. Adam looks up, freezes in place. That can’t be right. It’s a young boy, a <em>child. </em>What the hell?</p><p>Adam rubs his hands over his eyes, looks back up. The kid’s gone.</p><p>Brilliant. Now he’s hallucinating, too.</p><p>“Ready to go?” Ronan asks, reappearing on his other side. Adam pushes himself off the wall with gusto. The sooner they leave the better.</p><p>“Who was that?” Adam asks as they start walking towards the doors.</p><p>“Who, Czerny? He’s an old friend.”</p><p>“I was under the impression you didn’t have many of those.”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Ronan says gleefully. “We went to school together.”</p><p>“Oh, right, so another privileged trust fund kid that thinks fetishizing the working-class struggle will give his art some depth?” Everything about this place makes sense now. “That is so typical.”</p><p>“Jesus.” For a split second Adam worries he’s gone too far, let too much of his seething envy and bitterness seep to the surface. But then Ronan laughs and he remembers who he’s talking to – Ronan Lynch, reigning champion of taking things too far. “Gansey was way off the mark about you.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>Ronan opens a door leading out into another dimly-lit corridor and gestures for Adam to walk through. “When Gansey first met you,” he starts, as the door slams shut behind them, “he wouldn’t shut up about how <em>charming</em> you were. He made it sound like you’d walked right out of a goddamn fairytale, the humble well-mannered prince that took the time to fix the Pig and save his life.” They reach another set of doors, these ones leading onto a stairwell. Ronan waits till they’ve both stepped through and then adds, “He didn’t say anything about you being a colossal bastard.”</p><p>Adam thinks he should be offended right now. He should be very offended right now. But the way Ronan’s looking at him, calm and considering, the ghost of a smile on his face…well. It seems to mean something different, coming from him. A badge of honour, perhaps.</p><p>He thinks, <em>I’ve impressed him.</em> He lets himself dwell in the pride that thought elicits.</p><p>Then he thinks, <em>Shit. Why do I care about impressing him?</em></p><p>He says, “I can be charming too, you know.”</p><p>“Is that so?”</p><p>“I’m a complex man, Lynch. Don’t try and pigeon-hole me.”</p><p>The quote earns him another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile. He’s starting to enjoy the sight of those.</p><p>Then Ronan says, “You went to a house party and spent the whole night sitting on the couch. I don’t think charming’s in your wheelhouse.”</p><p>He’s right, of course. Charming is something Adam can only manage in small doses, and only when there’s something substantial to be gained. A job, a scholarship, a blue-blooded best friend. It’s a mask to slip on and off. Critical is his default setting.</p><p>He’s not used to being caught out so quickly, though. Years of practice at shaping himself into the right version for his environment – mild-mannered at school, deferential at work, docile at home – has sharpened his skills, allowing him to skirt around the edges of people’s lives in whatever role they’ve cast him as. It allowed him to sit on that couch, unnoticed, because that’s who he was to those people. Just another blurry face in a crowd. Better not to be seen at all than to be recognized in his true, ugly form.</p><p>He supposes it’s no wonder that Ronan noticed in him what most other people fail to. He’s always been good at bringing out the worst side of Adam, the Adam without a filter. Something about like calling to like.</p><p>“You got me,” Adam says, deadpan. “I’m clearly lacking the social graces of experts like yourself.”</p><p>“Asshole,” Ronan says, again with the fleeting smile. “My manners are imfuckingpeccable, I’ll have you know. My first grade teacher said I was a delight to have in her class.”</p><p>“Oh, first grade, that’s a high bar to cross.”</p><p>“It is. That woman had standards.”</p><p>“She had standards and you managed to slip through anyway? That’s almost impressive.”</p><p>He reaches the top of the stairs and lets Ronan lead the way down another corridor and through a final set of doors. The music’s barely detectable up here, nothing but a dull, persistent pulse in the background. All things considered, the venue choice makes a weird amount of sense. Maybe Czerny bought the whole building for this express purpose alone.</p><p>The room they’re in is vacant of both people and things, just a large, draughty space held up by concrete pillars. Adam sidesteps dust motes and rubble and thinks, offhandedly, that this would be a grim place to die. He can picture the CSI team cordoning off the floor, the detectives handing out coffee to the poor construction worker that happened across his corpse. <em>There was a</em> <em>bad smell</em>, he’d say, stricken.<em> Honest to god, thought it was just a rat.</em></p><p>Ronan crosses the room in several long strides and beckons Adam over to the window. It’s the type that spans the whole length of the wall. Probably would’ve looked beautiful back in its glory days but, much like the rest of the building, it’s fallen into a barren state of disrepair. The glass is long gone, shattered, or maybe never existed at all. He’s still no closer to guessing what this building was originally built for.</p><p>Ronan leans over the edge and Adam sees red.</p><p>“This doesn’t strike me as a good way of evading death,” he says.</p><p>“It’s fine. There’s a balcony and shit, just c’mere.”</p><p>Balcony. That can’t be good.</p><p>“Please don’t say your plan is to go out there.”</p><p>“You didn’t think we were gonna sit in this shithole all night, did you?”</p><p>Oh, Adam hates this.</p><p>He walks over to the window and looks outside. ‘Balcony’ is overstating it. It’s a tiny, narrow railing, barely big enough to fit one body never mind two.</p><p>And there’s a ladder attached to the wall. The metal, industrial kind. Adam really hates this.</p><p>“Fine, sure. Looks totally harmless,” he says.</p><p>“You wanna go first?”</p><p>“Absolutely not.” But he steps closer, anyway. The climb to the roof isn’t that high, and the drop below is steep but it’s got nothing on the tenth apartment floor. He could scale it fairly quickly, if he turns his brain off. Big if.</p><p>Ronan brushes him aside and vaults over the ledge before Adam can do the sensible thing and call this whole scheme off. He pushes himself up the ladder in a matter of seconds and then jumps onto the roof. Makes it look so easy, damn him. Adam holds his breath, <em>don’t think don’t think</em>, and then tries to do the same. The railing is freezing cold to the touch but he drowns out the voice of reason at the back of his mind, pushes himself upwards, and before he knows it his hands are brushing the flat top of the roof. That really wasn’t hard after all.</p><p>Ronan, having apparently decided not to watch Adam plummet to his death, is already sprawled out carelessly on the roof, holding himself up by his elbows. Adam takes a cautionary step forward, decides it feels steady enough, and then makes his way towards him.</p><p>“What is it with you and heights?” he asks as he sits down. It’s a nice night for February, the sky clear, crescent moon shining on the horizon. Cold, too, but he can barely feel it, adrenaline from the climb keeping him heated. He gazes out at the shimmering Boston skyline, which really is quite beautiful.</p><p>“Live a little, Parrish,” Ronan says.</p><p>“I’m trying to,” he remarks dryly, “but I’m not so sure <em>you</em> are.”</p><p>Ronan snorts. Adam thinks that’s the only response he’s going to get, but then he clears his throat and, eyes on the sky, says, “I hate the city.”</p><p>“I figured.”</p><p>“Everything is so damn loud all the time.”</p><p>“And your answer to that is to show up at an illicit rave in an abandoned building?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, smartass.” Adam can’t see his face properly but he knows Ronan’s rolling his eyes. “Maybe loud isn’t the word. It’s…what do you call it…busy.”</p><p>Adam’s ready to point out that those are in fact two very different words, with different meanings, but he holds back, figures he’s pushing it with his daily snark quota. And he really is interested in hearing where this train of thought leads.</p><p>“It’s like, everywhere you look there’s a whole damn crowd rushing around, and they’ve all got shit to do – Important Shit, all caps. And they don’t have time to stop for anything, least of all you,” Ronan says in a rush.“But you get on a roof, you don’t have to deal with that. You get to just exist.”</p><p><em>Oh</em>. Understanding trickles through Adam’s bloodstream. He’s shocked by how much he gets it.</p><p>When he first moved here, the culture shock was immense. Here was an endless source of entertainment, art galleries and museums and multi-storied libraries that stayed open till well into the night. Here were people from all walks of life who had ambition and purpose and didn’t know Adam from, well, Adam. Here was the opportunity he’d been waiting for to shape himself into something better, something more, something unrecognisable from the dusty boy of before.</p><p>But reinvention was easier said than done. In the end he hadn’t known where to begin, had been overwhelmed. The city had swallowed him up and then cast him out again, another nameless face adrift in the crowd. Here were galleries and museums to wander around in, solitary, searching for that spark of enlightenment that would prove you equal to everybody else; here were libraries to camp out in five nights of the week, stressed and alone and desperate to keep the dream alive. Here were people with ambition that burned brighter than yours, who’d been born into this life and already knew they belonged, who didn’t know you from Adam and didn’t care to. Here was an opportunity to become someone different, but don’t expect an audience. You’re not that special.</p><p>And here was Adam’s mother calling him up even when she’d vowed not to, and here was Adam’s father out of work after a bad accident, if you could call handling a forklift while drunk an accident, and here were the medical bills neither could afford, <em>can’t you do something, Adam, don’t you owe us this much</em>. We, who brought you into this world, put a roof over you head and never abandoned you even when you cried, who gave you the tools to climb this high, who provided you the motivation to try. And didn’t they have a point, in some sick sense? Who would Adam be without them? Who else did he have? He was part of this buzzing city now, and he thought this was his escape, but in the end he was anonymous, adrift, alone.</p><p>He always has been, but he hadn’t anticipated that he always would be. It hits different when you’re surrounded in a crowd.</p><p>“I know it sounds stupid.” Ronan’s voice breaks him out of his reverie. “Forget I said anything.”</p><p>“No. It’s not. I mean, I get it.” Adam clears his throat, carefully considers his next words. “It’s hard, sometimes, being around all these people. It’s…” <em>Lonely</em>. He smiles wryly, brushes his hand against gravel. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think everyone’s got it figured out except me.”</p><p>“You’re a Harvard nerd. You’ve clearly got some idea what you’re doing.”</p><p>“You’d be surprised.”</p><p>Ronan turns towards him but Adam looks down at his hands. He wishes he never said that. Why did he say it? Now is not the time for divulging sob stories. It’s never the time for that, especially not with Ronan.</p><p>He traces patterns on the gravel, counts down seconds in his head. He thinks Ronan might not bother speaking at all. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t.</p><p>Then, out of nowhere, Ronan asks, “What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Well we’re dying, right? Dying people have bucket lists.”</p><p>“Are we still dying if we’ve already died seven times?”</p><p>“Is the cat dead in the box?”</p><p>“Do you really wanna get into that, or…?”</p><p>Ronan waves his hand in a way that says<em> stick to the point</em>. Bucket list. Right.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Adam says, and then before Ronan can interrupt to call bullshit, “I’m serious. I can’t think of many things I wanna do that can be accomplished in one night.”</p><p>“We’re not actually going to do them.”</p><p>“Then how is it a bucket list?”</p><p>“A hypothetical bucket list,” he says. “I’m bored, Parrish. Humour me.”</p><p>There are so many things Adam wants to do in his life. He hasn’t achieved a fraction of them, and the thought that he might never get to now, that him and Ronan could be stuck like this forever, is terrifying. He wants to graduate summa cum laude, wants to make enough money to never go hungry again, wants to achieve something great and be remembered for it, wants to fall in love with someone that considers him more than just a passing distraction.</p><p>Ronan won’t care about stuff like that, though. He wants action and fun and excitement. Adam could tell him how he’s always wanted to learn to ride a motorbike, how he has every intention of buying one in the fantasy world where he can afford to waste money on things that are frivolous and impractical. Ronan would be interested in that, probably. It might even impress him.</p><p>It’s not much of a story, though. He racks his brain for something else.</p><p>“There must be something–”</p><p>“Okay, I’ve got it.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“It’s stupid, though. You’re gonna laugh.”</p><p>“Well now you’re morally obligated to share.”</p><p>“Right.” Adam takes a breath. “So, we used to have this county fair every summer back home …”</p><p>It’s a cliché, he knows, but back when he was a kid it had been a thing of wonder. His parents could never afford to take him, probably wouldn’t have bothered even if they had the money, so every year Adam would make do with his own daydreams. He’d listen attentively as his classmates discussed their various favourite rides and stalls and made plans to attend together over the holidays. He’d ride by on his bike, stalling to watch the flashing lights and bodies falling, arms and legs akimbo, from the drop tower. He’d follow the rapid motion of the tilt-a-whirl til it made him dizzy.</p><p>He was ten years old, an awkward, lanky outcast of a boy, and he didn’t have friends, not by a long shot, but he had acquaintances. Other misfit boys he could sit with at lunch, partner up with in class, point to when that critical voice at the back of his head asked just what exactly was wrong with him. Most of them never showed an interest in Adam outside of school hours, but then there was Trey. Or, more accurately, there was Trey’s mother, Sandra, the type of kind yet overbearing parent that wouldn’t take no for an answer. The type that pitied him, although not enough to really do anything about it.</p><p> Adam’s pride (and fear of getting on the wrong side of his father) usually won out, invitations revoked for both Trey’s sake and his own, but just that one time he couldn’t make himself disagree. He wanted to experience the fair for himself, wanted his own stories to share when school started back. He wanted to gorge himself on cotton candy and wave at strangers from the ferris wheel and pretend just this once that he was like everybody else. So when Sandra got Trey to ask him, Adam said yes.</p><p>“The whole thing was completely underwhelming. We didn’t even have dodge cars,” he tells Ronan, “but you know when you’re a kid and everything looks so much shinier than it really is? It was like that.”</p><p>“If all this dramatic build-up is just about you wanting to go to Disney World–”</p><p>“It’s not. Fuck you. I’m getting to that part.”</p><p>The answering tilt to Ronan’s head says, <em>go on, then, I’m waiting.</em></p><p>“So anyway, we get to the fair and Sandra gives us a handful of tickets, like a bunch. And we start wandering around, and there’s a whole ton of kids from our class there too, and everyone wants to ride the drop tower besides me. So I hang back, start playing the different stalls, and then I see it.”</p><p>“Fortune teller,” Ronan guesses.</p><p>“It was that game with the ducks in the water,” Adam says. “The one where you gotta hook the winning ducks to get a prize? You get three in a row, you get a top prize, and it’s these giant Pokémon stuffed toys. Everyone was obsessed with Pokémon at the time – you couldn’t walk into the playground without seeing those damn cards everywhere. So I saw that giant Squirtle and I thought, I need to win this. It’s mine.”</p><p>“Did you win it?”</p><p>“No.” Adam laughs. “I used up a thousand tickets and I still failed miserably.”</p><p>He’d embarrassed himself is what he’d done. Just thinking about it brings that familiar flush of humiliation to his face. Standing by the duck stall for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes, hooking losing duck after losing duck, the stall operator losing their encouraging smiles and growing increasingly concerned. <em>Look, kid, you got all these prizes already, give it up. Nobody ever wins the big ones.</em> But he kept going, silent, determined, because it wasn’t just a nice toy up for grabs. It was belonging, the chance to be like everybody else, or at least that’s how he thought of it at the time.</p><p>He used up every last ticket at that stall. Didn’t even get the chance to ride the tilt-a-whirl. Afterwards when he caught up to Trey, consolation prizes hanging out his pockets, Trey looked him over and said, <em>Wow, you’re such a weirdo.</em></p><p>They didn’t talk much after that. Sandra’s invitations became a thing of the past.</p><p>“So the one thing you’ve always wanted to do… is prove yourself?” Ronan barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “Jesus, Parrish. You’ve out-Parrished yourself.”</p><p>“What are you – That’s not – Where did you get that from?”</p><p>“That’s what you just said.”</p><p>“No I didn’t. I said I wanted to win that giant Squirtle.”</p><p>Ronan really does laugh then. Head tipped back, long, pale column of his neck on display. Adam watches, feels his throat dry up, then catches himself and looks away. Nothing to see, he knew Ronan would laugh. That’s what he wanted.</p><p>“What about you?” he asks. “What’s on your bucket list.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s easy,” Ronan says. “Sky diving.”</p><p>And really, Adam’s not surprised.</p><p>-</p><p>They stay up on the roof for hours, trading stories back and forth and then enjoying the silences in between. There’s no awkwardness about it, no expectations to fill in the gaps with small-talk. Ronan’s happy to just lie there, gazing up at the night sky. Adam is too.</p><p>When his mom calls, Adam doesn’t angst over whether or not to pick up. He turns the phone off and leaves it lying a few feet away, out of sight out of mind.</p><p>Ronan talks about Gansey and what a giant nerd he used to be. Adam points out that there is no <em>used to be</em>, he still very much <em>is,</em> and they laugh in the way you only can when ribbing on someone you love.</p><p>He talks about Blue, who he did not always like but has since come to grudgingly respect. Adam reads between the lines and discovers nothing but unabashed fondness, but he lets those words remain unsaid.</p><p>He talks about summer days spent hunting for a dead Welsh king, about Blue’s “freaky witch family” that are actually kind of cool, about the countless times they got trapped in the middle of the woods at night after Gansey’s “shitty ass Camaro” broke down, and Adam doesn’t mind that he’s heard most of these tales before. He likes hearing them from Ronan, who tells them with such dramatic storytelling flare, weaving curse words together like poetry, adding new dimensions that Gansey’s versions lacked. He likes the way Ronan’s bravado slips away with each new story, like he’s too caught up in what he’s saying to make the effort to appear detached. He likes it all so much that he almost forgets to be jealous that he’s just a distant observer, not part of the tale itself.</p><p>Almost.</p><p>Ronan doesn’t talk about his family, so Adam doesn’t ask. The lack of admission in itself is an answer.</p><p>Later, when they both agree to head back to the car, Adam reflects on everything he knows about Ronan – or everything he thought he knew. He’s always considered himself a good judge of character, quick to spot the red flags, draw the right conclusions and keep the appropriate distance, but Ronan lives to contradict. He defies expectations. Maybe Adam doesn’t know him well at all.</p><p>They return to the BMW and sit idling for a little while, just soaking in the warmth of the car. Ronan holds his hands up to the heater and complains about being “cold as balls.”</p><p>“You wore a leather jacket to sit on a rooftop,” Adam points out, holding his own hands out. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”</p><p>“What’s your excuse, then?”</p><p>“I got coerced onto a rooftop by a hooligan. I can’t be held accountable for that.”</p><p>Ronan smiles. He starts the car up and asks, “Where to?”</p><p>It’s almost midnight. Adam wonders if there’s some significance to that. In five minutes’ time do they get to return to their normal lives like Cinderella running from the ball? Will this fantastical night be over?</p><p>Will things go back to how they were before?</p><p>“Let’s take the scenic route back,” he says.</p><p>They drive in silence this time, radio blessedly turned off. Adam leans back against the headrest and watches the city flash by in vivid neon frames. <em>Snap.</em> Women stumbling out of a club, laughing, arm in arm. <em>Snap.</em> Two bouncers from neighbouring clubs caught up in animated conversation. <em>Snap. </em>A couple huddled together on the side-walk, blind to everything outside their own two-person world. Adam watches and watches until something inside him starts to hurt.</p><p>“You wanted to know about my first loop?”</p><p>He breaks out of his trance and looks up. Ronan’s eyes are firm on the road, fingers clenched around the wheel. Whatever decision he’s come to about sharing this, he’s still not sold on it.</p><p>“I think you might’ve been right,” Adam says, proceeding cautiously. “I’m not sure it even makes a difference.”</p><p>“It could, though.”</p><p>“I guess.” His brows furrow. He can’t tell where this is going, why Ronan seems so twitchy. “Did something strange happen to you?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“Lynch. If you don’t wanna tell me–”</p><p>“I’m serious. I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t remember any of it.”</p><p>He’s not lying, Adam knows that, but surely he must be confused. That fact doesn’t align with anything else they’ve talked about.</p><p>“You did, though. I mean, you remembered fighting with Gansey.” <em>And fighting with me.</em></p><p>“Yeah, no shit. I wasn’t blackout drunk at that point.”</p><p>Oh. Now it makes sense.</p><p>“So what <em>do </em>you remember, then?” Adam asks. “You must have some idea–”</p><p>“I got pissed, and then I left the flat and got even more pissed, and I don’t know<em> what</em> happened after that. I don’t know who I talked to, or where the fuck I went, or when I died, or how I died. I got nothing, okay? I’m no use to anyone.”</p><p>Adam wants to be annoyed, or mad, or upset – the clue to whatever’s happening to them could’ve been in Ronan’s head all along, for all they know – but Ronan’s already all those things. He’s enough of those things for the both of them. Talking him down feels more important than righteous indignation right now.</p><p>“Look, you know what happened,” Adam says. “You just need a reminder. What if we retraced your steps? Maybe that would jog your memory, refresh things.”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. He looks defeated.</p><p>“We might not even need to do anything. I mean, look, it’s after midnight, right? We’re still here. Maybe the universe is done tormenting us.”</p><p>“Sure.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “Back to reality we go.”</p><p>Whatever. Adam’s not in the mood to argue. He leans back again and carries on looking out the window, watches as the crowds dwindle and they leave the night-life behind altogether. Back to reality means apologizing to Gansey for bailing on his birthday party. It means heading to the library to work on his sociology essay. It means turning his phone back on and facing the influx of missed calls, calling his mother up with the knowledge that her cruel words from last night exist in his head alone.</p><p>Will Ronan want to pretend this whole thing never happened? Well, why wouldn’t he? It’s not like anything good has come from it.</p><p>Adam shuts his eyes.</p><p>He reopens them.</p><p>He stares.</p><p>The boy from the party is staring right back.</p><p>“Don’t look now,” he tells Ronan, “but I think we’re being haunted.”</p><p>“<em>What?</em>”</p><p>The kid’s standing by the side of the road several metres ahead and he’s looking right at them. He’s looking right at <em>Adam</em>. And the crazy thing is, Adam knows that face. He’s seen him before. In fact, he looks a lot like…</p><p>Well. He looks like Adam.</p><p>“Fucking hell, Parrish, what are you staring at?” Ronan says. “Who the fuck–?”</p><p>The car swerves off course. Adam shouts, lunges for the wheel, but he’s a second too late.</p><p>Back down the rabbit hole they go.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting this.”</p><p>Ronan bites back a snarl and slides into the leather booth across from Declan. His brother’s really put the effort in this time – he’s managed to pick out a restaurant where only<em> half</em> the patrons are smug old douchebags in suits. Sure, the place is still upscale and stuffy as hell, but at least Ronan wasn’t forcibly removed from the premises when the hostess caught sight of his ripped jeans. Declan must’ve spent hours planning out this careful compromise. He probably <em>conferred</em> (an obnoxious word, which means it’s definitely part of the Declan Dictionary) with his <em>colleagues </em>(again, obnoxious) at Georgetown one night over G&amp;Ts at the local boys’ club. <em>Where’s a place in Cambridge I can take my ill-mannered brother that’s not too gauche? Where can I show my face without losing my dignity in the process? </em>Classic Declan.</p><p>“Don’t get too comfortable,” Ronan says, reaching for the menu. “You’re not off the hook by a long shot.”</p><p>“This is the first time you’ve willingly spoken to me in four months. Excuse me if I consider that progress.”</p><p>Ronan scoffs. ‘Willingly’ is putting it nicely. He’d rather be anywhere but here, but there’s no getting his way today. Some sacrifices have to be made. Call it a necessary evil, or whatever.</p><p>“I’m not here for you,” he says.</p><p>Declan rolls his eyes and lifts his own menu. It’s true, though: Ronan’s mostly here for himself.</p><p>Blacking out isn’t anything new. Sometimes Ronan overestimates his own limits. Hell, sometimes it’s intentional, the very reason he drinks in the first place. Ronan’s life has been a whole sequence of shit he’d like to forget.</p><p>This time, though? Not ideal. He’d like to have some idea of how he snuffed it, thanks very much.</p><p>It was Parrish who spurred this on, Parrish with all his great big ideas. <em>You know what happened</em>, he said last night.<em> You just need a reminder.</em> So Ronan thought to himself, <em>Where  would I go if I was drunk off my ass and raring for a fight?</em></p><p>And that brought him here. Declan’s good for something after all, go figure.</p><p>A server appears just in time to ask for Ronan’s drink order. Declan’s already nursing a glass of red wine, probably some unbearably fancy shit that Ronan can’t pronounce. Ronan doesn’t bother looking at the drinks menu. He turns to the server and says, “Have you got beer? Just some normal beer.”</p><p>“Of course,” the server says, unfazed. “We’ve got the Anderson Valley Boont, or the–”</p><p>“He’ll have a soda,” Declan cuts in.</p><p>“Fuck you. I’ll have whatever I damn well want.”</p><p>“You’re not the legal drinking age.”</p><p>“That’s never stopped <em>you</em> before.”</p><p>The server looks between them, floundering. Ronan lets the moment drag on, watches as the agitation starts to show on Declan’s face, before saying, “Fine. Cola, then.”</p><p>“I know you’re trying your best to provoke me,” Declan says, once the server’s well and truly out the way.</p><p>“Is it working?”</p><p>“What did you come here for?” he asks instead. “If it wasn’t for me.”</p><p>Ronan returns his gaze to the menu. There’s no use explaining it,<em> I’m hoping the sight of your smug face clues me in on how I died</em>. He’s not even sure how best to approach this. Maybe if he just keeps pushing the right buttons, Declan will snap and say something awful that brings Ronan’s memories back to him in a flood. As if anything is ever that easy.</p><p>“Don’t tell me, then,” Declan says. “But if you’re expecting me to pay for whatever ridiculous shit you order, you have to sit here and hear me out.”</p><p>“If you didn’t wanna put your hands in your pockets, you shouldn’t have chosen this overpriced shit show.”</p><p>“Ronan.” He sighs. “You think I don’t know you by now? You’re going to order the most expensive dish on that menu just to screw with me.”</p><p>He <em>was </em>going to order the most expensive dish on the menu, but now Declan’s gone and sucked the fun out of it.</p><p>“All right, let’s hear it then,” he says instead. “You came all this way, may as well get it over with.”</p><p>“Believe it or not, I didn’t come all this way just for you. You’re not the center of the world, Ronan.”</p><p>“Great fucking apology, man. How long you been practising that one for?”</p><p>The server returns with Ronan’s drink, saving him the hassle of listening to whatever self-pitying screed Declan’s got prepared. They order their meals, and Ronan surprises everyone by ordering only the<em> second</em> most expensive dish on the menu. Who said he doesn’t have it in him to be generous?</p><p>Parrish wouldn’t be very impressed if he saw the price list, probably. Good thing Ronan doesn’t care to impress.</p><p>“I <em>am</em> sorry,” Declan says once they’re alone again.</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“But what?”</p><p>“You said but. What’s the but?”</p><p>“I didn’t say but. You said but.”</p><p>“I said but because the damn but was implied.”</p><p>“Jesus, Ronan, why is everything with you a–”</p><p>“Just get it over with,” Ronan snaps. “Get your half-assed apology out the way.”</p><p>“You know what? Fine. I am<em> sorry </em>you’ve taken this all so harshly,” Declan says, voice lowered, “but it’s about time you grew up and learned to handle your shit like an adult instead of flying off the handle every damn second. I’m not here to be your punching bag.”</p><p>“That’s not even a half-assed apology. That’s less than half-assed. That’s a half-assed half-assed apology.”</p><p>“What do you want me to say? I’ve tried explaining it to you and you didn’t want to listen. I’ve told you time and time again that I sold the Barns because I had to, I sold the business because I had to, because that’s the situation Dad left us–”</p><p>“Don’t bring him into this.”</p><p>“Bring him into this? Ronan, he’s the reason this whole mess exists.”</p><p>Ronan clenches his fists on the table. He counts to ten and back, and then again. He’s not going to react. He’s not.</p><p>“He made promises to clients that he couldn’t keep,” Declan’s saying now, undeterred. “He thought he could fuck with whoever he wanted, and none of it would have any conseq–”</p><p>“He’s <em>dead</em>.”</p><p>“He left us millions of dollars in debt. That doesn’t go away just because the past caught up with him.”</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>“Why do you think he left everything to me? The Barns, the gallery – you think there wasn’t an ulterior motive there?”</p><p>“You’re the oldest. Of course he wanted you to be in charge.” But that’s not true, is it, because Ronan’s always wondered, always questioned why his father would sign everything off to the son with the most emotional detachment to all of it. It was inevitable that Declan wouldn’t want anything to do with the business, that he would wash his hands of it at the first opportunity. Even if he cared about art (which, hell, maybe he does, it’s not like Ronan’s ever cared to ask) he’d sell the gallery anyway, just out of spite. And Dad knew Declan never liked him. He knew, and he still chose him. Why not–?</p><p>“It should’ve be you.” <em>Me. Why not me? </em>“Don’t lie to yourself. You know as well as I do that you were his favourite. The artist. The natural successor.”</p><p>Ronan’s defences drop away. He knows it’s the truth.</p><p>“Dad trusted me to clean up his messes,” Declan says. “He trusted <em>me</em>, because he didn’t want <em>you</em> to get your hands dirty. That’s the truth of it, Ronan, and that’s why everything had to go. I had to claw back whatever finances I could before the whole damn thing toppled on us all.”</p><p>Ronan lets that sink in. He pictures his father, a celebrated art dealer but also a charming smooth-talker that always had a story to spin. Would he really have gambled on everything they owned? Would he really have done something so reckless, endangered the whole family, the gallery, the Barns? Why would he risk any of that? Didn’t he already have everything he could possibly need?</p><p>“How long have you known?” Ronan asks. “Since before he…?” <em>Died. Was murdered. Since I found his brains splattered on the garage floor.</em></p><p>“I had my suspicions. I found out for sure after the will was settled.”</p><p>Three years, then. Declan’s been up to his eyes in it for three whole years.</p><p>“And you didn’t think to tell us.”</p><p>“I didn’t want to put you all through that,” he says. “Not with you and Mom so…”</p><p>Ronan laughs harshly. What did it matter, in the end? He went off the deep end regardless. Mom did too.</p><p>Brain aneurysm. Doctors said it couldn’t be helped. Bad genes. No one to blame. She’d been catatonic for months beforehand, though. Just up and quit talking, quit responding, didn’t care for anything without their father around.</p><p>Ronan landed himself in the hospital a few weeks later.</p><p>He pictures the Barns – the house he grew up in, taking his first steps, speaking his first words, learning to read and write and paint; the kitchen that his parents used to dance in, merry and so in love; all those glorious, sprawling flatlands that were his and his brothers’ to explore; his<em> home</em> – belonging to somebody else. Some new family with new ideas, imposing themselves on the land that used to be his. Shaping it into something unrecognisable. Somewhere he doesn’t belong.</p><p>And his father had done that. Had cast them out while securing his own grim fate.</p><p>And Declan had <em>known.</em></p><p>He feels sick.</p><p>There’s no way he spent his first loop fighting with Declan. If Declan had been there, had told him any of this shit, then Ronan would have remembered no matter how drunk he was. He’s sure of it.</p><p>So him and Parrish are back to square one.</p><p>“What about the trust funds?” he asks.</p><p>“I have it under control.”</p><p>“What the fuck does that mean?”</p><p>“It means you need to be less wasteful,” Declan says, “and stop taking that money for granted. Can you try that for once?”</p><p>Ronan shakes his head. He can’t believe this, the nerve of him.</p><p>“You don’t get to lecture me,” he says, “when you made a decision that affected all of us without telling any of us!”</p><p>“Ronan–”</p><p>“I don’t care what the will says. That was <em>my home.</em> I had more claim to it than you. I fucking lived there! And you didn’t think to ask me what I wanted?”</p><p>“It’s not about what any of us wanted,” Declan snaps. “It’s about what was needed for–”</p><p>“Oh, fuck that! Fuck that sanctimonious bullshit. You always think you know what’s best for everyone but you don’t, okay? You don’t know shit about anything.”</p><p>“I know that staying in that house wasn’t healthy for you.” And <em>oh</em>, there it is, the real truth of the matter, everything Declan’s been dying to say from the get-go. “I know that you either would’ve figured that out for yourself and moved on or kept stewing in your own misery till you drove everyone else away. Is it really the end of the world if it’s gone?”</p><p>Why did he think this was a good idea? When is talking to Declan ever a good idea? Declan, who thinks he knows how to live Ronan’s life better than Ronan does. Declan, who hates what they came from and would sooner see it burn than acknowledge the good in any of it. Declan, who <em>always</em> assumes the worst in him.</p><p>Declan leans back in his seat, grips the bridge of his nose, and says, “I’m really trying here, Ronan. I really don’t want to fight with you.”</p><p>Screw this.</p><p>“I’m done here,” Ronan says, and stands up.</p><p>“Ronan, please. Don’t cause a scene.”</p><p>“How about you go to hell, fucker.”</p><p>He gets a lot of stares on his way out the door, so he makes sure to really play up into their expectations and give Declan the finger from the window. Those stuffy old fucks could be doing with some free entertainment, and he’s happy to provide. God knows he’d be bored out his ass too if he had to live like that.</p><p>-</p><p>“Ronan, are you home?”</p><p>Ronan does not answer. Ronan wants to be left the fuck alone.</p><p>He wants a drink, actually. He wants to check the fuck out of this whole damn situation.</p><p>Can’t risk it, though. There’s too much to be done. Parrish is counting on him.</p><p>
  <em>Parrish.</em>
</p><p>He’ll be here soon, making half-hearted protests about being fussed over before shuffling obediently into Gansey’s room like a damn zombie. Ronan watched it all unfold last night before he woke him up. Parrish looked dead on his feet but that’s nothing new. He’s always looked like he’s a hairsbreadth away from falling apart. Ronan used to be much better at ignoring it.</p><p>“I don’t think he’s home,” Gansey says, which is fair enough. Ronan <em>does </em>have his light turned off, although it wouldn’t take much to open his door and see him right here, leaning against the wall.</p><p>He has to get up eventually, he knows that. He has to wake Parrish up, trace his steps, find his way back to wherever this started. Just five more minutes, though. He still needs time to get to grips with everything, wrap his head around it, before he can move on.</p><p>
  <em>It’s gone for good. Everything is gone for good.</em>
</p><p>He’d thought Declan would cave in, if he pressured him enough. He never thought this exile would be permanent.</p><p>“It’s fine.” Blue’s voice, in the kitchen. “I told you we had it covered. Henry’s just picking up the buffet.”</p><p>“A buffet? You didn’t need to worry about that.”</p><p>“Pshaw. It’s your birthday! You can’t have a birthday party without feeding everybody.”</p><p>Movement down the hall. Glasses clinking against one another. A chair scraping against the floor. Ronan considers putting his headphones on, tuning them out, but then Gansey starts talking again:</p><p>“I just don’t want to disappoint you, is all.”</p><p>“Gansey…”</p><p>“It’s stupid, I know. But you’ve gone to all this trouble, and I don’t want you thinking I don’t appreciate–”</p><p>“Hey, if you wanna call this whole thing off, there’s still time.”</p><p>“No! Of course not! That’s not what I–”</p><p>“I can call Henry right now and tell him to get the word out–”</p><p>“It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I’m being stupid, is all.”</p><p>Ronan frowns. He’s got no idea what <em>that’s</em> about. He could’ve sworn Gansey was looking forward to the party. He hasn’t shut up about it for weeks.</p><p>He gets to his feet and heads into the hallway before this discussion can escalate into a full-blown fight.</p><p>“Oh! Ronan!” Gansey looks up at him, wide-eyed. He’s sitting at the breakfast bar, tossing a tangerine between both hands. Blue’s standing beside him, setting booze out on the counter. “I didn’t think you were home. We shouted on you.”</p><p>Ronan points to the headphones around his neck. He’s not about to fess up to eavesdropping.</p><p>“What’s up, Sargent?” he says, because he might’ve seen her yesterday but she hasn’t seen him since New Year’s. “Committed any arson lately?”</p><p>“Fuck you, asshole. I told you that in strict confidence.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, did I hear that right?” Gansey says. “You committed<em> arson</em>?”</p><p>“It wasn’t actual arson. Lynch is exaggerating. It was like, minor arson at best. I set one backpack on fire and you can’t even prove it was me, okay?”</p><p>“You set <em>somebody’s backpack</em> on fire?”</p><p>“What? The guy was one of those pickup artists. He had it coming!”</p><p>“Dear God.” Gansey puts his face in his hands. “I’m going to have to go to law school after all, aren’t I?”</p><p>“If it makes you feel better, I could always make a habit out of it. Make law school worth your while.”</p><p>“Thank you, Jane, but that does not make me feel better at all.”</p><p>“I thought that.” She tilts her head, deliberating. “I might do it anyway, though.”</p><p>“Please don’t,” Gansey says.</p><p>“I’ll help,” Ronan says.</p><p>Blue points vaguely between the two of them and says, “Noted.” She pulls the last bottle of vodka from the plastic bag she’s been emptying onto the counter and then looks around. “God dammit. I left the birthday banners in the trunk.”</p><p>“Birthday banners? Why would we need birthday banners?”</p><p>“I’m starting to think you’ve never been to a birthday party before.” She holds her hand out and says, “Car keys?”</p><p>Gansey hands them over with a look of grim reluctance.</p><p>Ronan takes a seat at the breakfast bar once she’s gone. It’s funny – he’s had all this extra time on his hands, and yet he feels like he’s seen even less of Gansey than usual. He couldn’t tell you the last time he talked to Gansey,<em> really</em> talked, and didn’t just put up with his presence till he could find an escape route. He supposes it makes him a real shitty friend, but hell, it’s not like Gansey’s going to be real broken up by something he can’t remember.</p><p>“Everything good?” Gansey asks now, and Ronan resists the urge to snort. What could he possibly say to that? <em>I keep dying and I’m too fucked up to remember why. Everything I care about is gone for good and the person to blame is cold in his grave. I hate my father. I miss my father. I don’t know if I have a future here, or anywhere.</em></p><p>“Fucking peachy,” is what he goes with.</p><p>“You and me, both.” Gansey throws the tangerine up in the air and catches it with the other hand. He smells like mint. Must’ve been chewing those damn mint leaves again, which means something’s on his mind.</p><p>Ronan could ask. He wants to ask. What can he really do about it, though? Ronan’s no help to anybody. He can’t even help himself.</p><p>“You ever felt like you’re trapped living the same day on repeat, making the same mistakes over and over again, till you die?” he asks, just for the hell of it.</p><p>Gansey’s face scrunches up. “Uh, yes, I suppose, in a manner of speaking.”</p><p>“You suppose?”</p><p>He looks at Ronan with careful deliberation, and then says, “There’s a name for that, you know.”</p><p>“Of course there is.” And of course Gansey knows it, too, probably read about it during one of his late-night Wikipedia binges. “What is it, some whack nerd shit?”</p><p>“No, Ronan,” he says, in an unbearably gentle manner. “It’s called depression.”</p><p>Ronan stares at him flatly. He doesn’t have a retort for that.</p><p>His eyes catch on the kitchen clock. He says, “Parrish is outside.”</p><p>“You can’t just distract–”</p><p>The buzzer rings, right on cue. Gansey looks at Ronan, bewildered, before buzzing Parrish in. He unlocks the front door and then starts to backtrack.</p><p>“I wouldn’t sit down just yet,” Ronan says. “Sargent’s on her way back.”</p><p>Sure enough, seconds later, the buzzer rings again.</p><p>“How are you <em>doing</em> that?” Gansey asks.</p><p>“Witchcraft.”</p><p>“What’s witchcraft?” Body-snatched Parrish asks from the doorway. Ronan watches him do his zombie shuffle into the room, watches as Gansey shifts into Mother Hen mode and attempts to coax him into taking a nap, watches as Blue reappears and reaffirms that she doesn’t need Parrish’s help, she’s an independent woman, thanks very much.</p><p>The whole process takes five minutes, which is pretty miraculous given Parrish’s chronic stubborn bastard syndrome. He barely looks Ronan’s way the whole time. Seems content to act like Ronan isn’t in the room at all, not that Ronan cares. Why would he care?</p><p>He wanders out of Gansey’s eyesight before his friend gets any crazy ideas, like talking to Ronan about his feelings or some shit. He waits twenty minutes, enough time for Parrish to fall into a deep REM sleep, before making his way into Gansey’s room and waking him up. Parrish looks dead to the world in his sleep and is slow to react. It’s probably the best (hell, only) nap he’s had in years and Ronan would feel guilty about disturbing him, but he’s only passing on the message here, fulfilling his civic duty. Not his fault Parrish is a masochist.</p><p>He wakes up eventually. Looks around the room with wild, haunted eyes. Understandable, he did just die two seconds ago.</p><p>Got them killed again, more accurately.</p><p>“What the fuck was that?” Ronan says. “You drove us off the road!”</p><p>“Pretty sure you were the one behind the wheel.”</p><p>Parrish is also an unbearable smart ass, but Ronan’s known that from day one.</p><p>“What did you see?” he asks him.</p><p>“I don’t know what you–”</p><p>“Don’t bullshit me, Parrish.”</p><p>“Look, it doesn’t matter anymore.” Parrish lets out a massive yawn and stretches, shirt riding up his chest. Ronan catches a glimpse of smooth, tan skin and then firmly looks away. “I thought I saw someone on the street. Clearly you didn’t, though, so it’s must’ve been nothing. Probably sleep deprivation.”</p><p>He’s hiding something. He’s good at it, has a real poker face, but Ronan’s never been easily deceived. He knows a liar when he sees one.</p><p>
  <em>Unless it’s Dad.</em>
</p><p>Whatever. He’ll get Parrish to fold later. Right now they’ve more important things to deal with.</p><p>“Whatever, man. Try and look alive,” he says, and pulls the pillow away. “We’ve got a party to suffer through.”</p><p>-</p><p>7:58. Arrival of the first guests.</p><p>Ronan was the one to answer the door, only because Blue and Henry were both too busy fussing over the music selection and the incessant buzzing was driving him nuts. The group of students looked momentarily put out at the sight of him standing there in the entryway, stony-faced, empty shot glass in hand.</p><p>“This is Gansey’s apartment, right?” one of them, some blonde girl in a faux fur coat, asked. He grunted and stepped aside.</p><p>This time around, Parrish answers the door. He’s all genial smiles, the picture of Southern courteousness, until the guy at the rear of the group gives him a “What’s up, Parrish?” and one of those douchebro shoulder pats. Parrish stares him down and offers no welcoming greetings, not even a <em>Hi</em>. The temperature in the room dips by several degrees. The guy’s hand falls away. He mumbles awkwardly, face flushed, and hurries into the apartment.</p><p>“What was <em>that</em>?” Ronan asks, unable to hold back his smile.</p><p>“Freshman roommate,” Parrish says. “Let’s just say we didn’t see things eye to eye very often.”</p><p>As it turns out, there are a lot of people Parrish doesn’t “see things eye to eye” with at the party. Ronan watches with savage glee as Parrish ignores calls to join various conversations, cuts guys down before they can get a single word in, and generally ices out anyone who attempts to get on his good side. He knew Parrish was antisocial, of course, but there’s a difference between knowing something’s true and seeing it on full display right before his eyes. It’s fucking hilarious, not least of all because Parrish doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.</p><p>“Jesus,” Ronan says, as Parrish pulls his creepy ass <em>I see right through you to the very depths of your soul and I am deeply unimpressed</em> stare routine on another unsuspecting douchebag and sends him running. “So this is why you don’t go out much.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“I thought you were exaggerating when you said no one here was worth knowing, but fuck. You really hate everyone in this room, huh?”</p><p>“And you don’t?”</p><p>“I don’t give two fucks about most of them,” Ronan says. “But you, you really have it out for them.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” he says. “I don’t even know most of them.”</p><p>“Right, and you’re clearly desperate to change that.”</p><p>Parrish doesn’t respond. His eyes have drifted over to a spot by the coat-rack. There’s no one there but he looks transfixed. It’s somewhat unsettling to watch, but Parrish is an unsettling guy, a little faraway, a little inscrutable. Ronan likes that about him.</p><p>He comes back to himself gradually, a furrowed brow, a blink, a boyish hand running over his long, gaunt face. He looks Ronan over, then says, “Where to next?”</p><p>-</p><p>8:54. Return to the bedroom.</p><p>“So you hung out in here until Gansey showed up…when, exactly?” Parrish asks.</p><p>“About fifteen minutes from now.”</p><p>“Okay.” He hovers in the doorway, arms crossed. It’s less an offensive <em>don’t fuck with me </em>stance than it is defensive, like he’s holding himself at arm’s length from the rest of the world. Ronan understands the former a lot better than the latter. He’s never felt the need to protect himself, to be cautious of what the world has in store for him. Shit happens whether you allow it to or not, and you can either roll with the punches or let them knock you out the ring.</p><p>“You can sit down, you know,” Ronan says. Parrish glances around the room, at the unmade bed, at the lone chair that’s acting as a makeshift wardrobe. Ronan discreetly kicks a pair of underwear beneath the bed. So he didn’t have time to do the laundry this morning, sue him. He’s got nothing to be ashamed of. At least his room actually looks lived in and not like some weirdly perfect model house shit.</p><p>“You paint?”</p><p>The question catches Ronan off guard. He follows Parrish’s gaze to the old paint pot nestled on the windowsill. He forgot about that. If he’d known he’d have company over, he would’ve hidden <em>that,</em> at least.</p><p>Parrish is watching him now, so Ronan shrugs.</p><p>“You don’t know if you paint?”</p><p>“I used to,” he says.</p><p>“Why did you stop?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs again. He is not drunk enough to have this conversation.</p><p>There’s no reason for his old shit to exist in this room. He hasn’t painted anything new for a long time, longer than he’s stayed in this place. While Czerny was busy applying to art schools all along the east coast, Ronan spent most of his senior year drinking away whatever meagre talent he’d ever had in his bones. He’s an artist that’s stopped creating, which means he’s really nothing at all.</p><p>Parrish sighs and slides down the wall. He spreads his legs out along the floor, places a hand on either side to hold himself up, and tips his head partway to the ceiling. He says, almost as an afterthought, “You don’t make it easy to get to know you.”</p><p>Ronan could laugh at the irony of that. Adam Parrish, who holds all his cards close to his chest and never drops his defences, who is remote and thorny and determined to do everything all on his own. Has anyone ever gotten close enough to Adam to really know him? Would he ever let them, if they tried?</p><p>“Maybe that’s why we’re both tied together,” Ronan says. “Fucking fate decreed we’re both as shitty and screwed up as each other.”</p><p>Adam smiles, but there’s something sombre lingering beneath it. The moonlight casts shadows across his face, rendering him stark and unearthly in the glow. Ronan wonders what it would take to strip back all those layers and get to whatever sadness is at the center, whatever it is that’s convinced Adam he’s an army of one, at odds with the world. He wonders if it’d look anything like the mess at his own core.</p><p>He wonders a lot of things about Adam Parrish. Every new piece of the puzzle is wondrous and unexpected.</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing?</em>
</p><p>“Gansey will be here soon,” Parrish says, after several minutes of easy silence. “Do you want me to…I mean, it might be best if I’m not here for…”</p><p>“Go ahead,” Ronan says. “I’ll catch up with you in the living room.”</p><p>He watches Parrish get up and leave the room. Better when he’s gone, Ronan thinks. Better when Ronan can screw things up without an audience.</p><p>-</p><p>9:09. First fuck-up of the night.</p><p>“Blue was wondering where you got to,” Gansey says, hovering in the doorway. “I thought you might’ve left.”</p><p>“I’m not that much of an asshole.” He is, has been nearly every version of this night, but Gansey doesn’t need to know that.</p><p>He’s not going to drag Gansey into another fight just like the first one. They might be retracing his steps but that doesn’t mean he’s re-enacting the whole damn night, huge regrets and all. He can hardly remember why he was so angry with Gansey, anyway, or why he cared so much about Gansey’s attempts to let loose and have fun.</p><p>
  <em>Jealousy. Insecurity. Chronic fear of being replaced.</em>
</p><p>Hell, that was aeons ago. He’s a changed man now, would you believe it.</p><p>“I wasn’t saying you were.” Gansey gently shuts the door behind him, watches Ronan from a careful distance away, and Ronan hates it. He hates that everyone he cares about has learned to heed the warning signs and approach with caution. “Listen…I know these past few months haven’t been easy–”</p><p>“Don’t finish that sentence.”</p><p>“I’m just worried about you,” he says. “All of us are.”</p><p>“You don’t need to worry,” Ronan says. “I’m not a damn invalid.”</p><p>“What you said earlier–”</p><p>“Jesus. It wasn’t some metaphor, Dick. It’s…” Literal, but Gansey won’t understand. Ronan’s bored of trying to make him understand.</p><p>“It’s what? Not like before? Because it doesn’t look that way to me. It looks exactly like before. You never talk. You drink all the time. You’re rarely ever here,” Gansey says. “I just want to help you, Ronan. I want you to want to be helped.”</p><p>He could point out that it’s not like before because there never was an after, just a brief reprieve before everything went to shit again, and now this ever-present shittiness is the new normal. He could point out that Gansey is a fool for not realizing that the old, non-orphaned, non-exiled Ronan is never coming back and in his place will always be this lesser version of the friend he signed on for.</p><p>But it’s Gansey’s night, and Ronan’s not interested in fighting with him again. So he just rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Fuck, man, lighten up,” he says. “I thought this was a party.”</p><p>-</p><p>9:18. The party.</p><p>“You’re early,” Parrish says, when Ronan emerges from the hallway. “You didn’t leave the room for at least another ten minutes the first time round.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, I had a lot more to say the first time round.”</p><p>“Right,” Parrish says. “So you had the fight with Gansey, and then what?”</p><p>“Ah, Lynch, you are just the man I need!”</p><p>“Fucking Cheng,” Ronan snarls. He forgot about this.</p><p>Cheng beckons him over to the speakers, and Ronan follows only because past him was far too inebriated to think better of it. Parrish trudges after him, head down as though he can make himself invisible through sheer force of will alone.</p><p>“You see that man our darling Bluebird is engaged in rapid rapport with?” Cheng says, the minute they’re within earshot.</p><p>“The Neanderthal with the giant forehead?”</p><p>“He’s on the rugby team,” Cheng says. “He’s in good shape.”</p><p>“And he has a giant forehead,” Ronan says. “It’s like a fucking crater. I could bounce a rugby ball right off that thing and he wouldn’t even feel it.”</p><p>Parrish snorts, and Cheng zeroes in on him.</p><p>“Adam Parrish, always a beacon of good sense,” he declares. “I need a second opinion on our rugby fellow here. Gay or nay?”</p><p>“Oh, definite closet case,” Parrish says. “I think you can do better, though.”</p><p>“That is perhaps the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”</p><p>“I say go for it,” Ronan contributes. “Screw dignity. It’s a social construct.”</p><p>Cheng looks at him as though he’s just dropped a massive pearl of wisdom into his lap. Parrish covers his face with both his hands.</p><p>“You know, that is a remarkably good point,” Cheng says. “I’m starting to see why Gansey keeps you around. You have gloriously hidden depths, my friend.”</p><p>“Mhm.” Ronan nods. “Complexity. I have it.”</p><p>“I’m going to give him a chance to claw his way back into Blue’s good graces,” Cheng says, “and then I shall make my move. Good talk, friends.”</p><p>“You’re a terrible friend,” Parrish says, once they’ve walked away.</p><p>“He wanted the support to make a massive mistake, I gave it to him,” Ronan says. “I’m an excellent friend.”</p><p>“When your friend tells you he’s thinking about jumping into shark infested waters, you’re supposed to say, ‘Hey, try reconsidering that,’ not, ‘Nice one, bro. Safety’s a social construct.’”</p><p>“First of all, your friends are a bunch of nerds. Some of us like to have fun, man.”</p><p>“You have a skewed idea of what’s fun.”</p><p>“And second of all,” Ronan says, undeterred, “Cheng’s not even my friend. He’s just some annoying fucker we went to school with that <em>thinks</em> he’s my friend because Gansey’s his friend.”</p><p>Parrish stares at him dubiously, and, okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. He doesn’t hate Cheng, at least not anymore. Prolonged exposure to his over-dramatic ass has rendered him about as annoying as a gnat on the wall. And, fine, sometimes it’s nice to not be stuck hanging around straight people 24/7. Key word, sometimes.</p><p>He waits for Parrish’s snarky reply, but all he does is say, “I’m not sure Henry sees it that way,” which is, perhaps, the worst response he could have offered.</p><p>-</p><p>9:53. A brief reprieve.</p><p>“This is when shit gets hazy.”</p><p>“How hazy are we talking?” Parrish asks. They’re standing in the hallway outside the apartment, a safe distance away from the stairs. Ronan remembers coming out here to take a breather, remembers nursing a drink (or two?) while leaning against this wall. Did he actually leave? No, that’s not right. He just stood out here watching the herds come and go, stewing in his misery. He’d been pissed about Declan, pissed about Gansey, pissed about all these interlopers crowding his apartment. But he’d still gone back inside.</p><p>He’d gone back inside looking for a fight.</p><p>He doesn’t look at Parrish. He must know, better than Ronan, what comes next.</p><p>“Not hazy enough.”</p><p>-</p><p>10:18. The couch.</p><p>“We don’t have to go over this part,” Ronan says. “You were there.”</p><p>“Shouldn’t that make it more significant?”</p><p>Unlikely. What could be significant about their pointless fight? He was cruel, and Parrish was cruel right back. It’s old news. They’ve always fought ugly.</p><p>They cross the room, sober, a funeral procession. Ronan really doesn’t need this recap. He remembers this moment just fine, remembers Parrish ignoring him the way he’s been doing with these douchebags all night, remembers how that only spurred Ronan on, made him desperate to claim Parrish’s attention.<em> Parrish, are you deaf or something? Parrish, Parrish, look at me, Parrish.</em></p><p>Well, he got his way in the end. Parrish has no choice but to endure Ronan’s presence now.</p><p>Fucking funny how fate works.</p><p>“So you picked a fight with me on the couch, and then you stormed out,” Parrish says. “What next?”</p><p>Fuck. What next?</p><p>He racks his brain, tries to visualize his exit from the apartment. Did he take the elevator? The stairs? Did he fall down the stairs?</p><p>No, that’s not right. He remembers stumbling down to the ground floor, pent-up, seething. He’d bumped into someone, or maybe they bumped into him. He definitely yelled at them, though. God, did he pick a fight with some poor stranger on the street? Maybe he got the shit beat out of him. Probably deserved it, too.</p><p>“Lynch?”</p><p>“I don’t know, okay?” he snaps. “I told you this was pointless.”</p><p>“It’s not pointless,” Parrish says. “You just need to try harder.”</p><p>“I am trying! I’ve been trying all day and I haven’t got anywhere with it. Whatever happened, it’s gone, okay? It’s fucking gone.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“What do you mean, no? Are you in my head now? You think you know what’s going on in there better than I do?”</p><p>“You can’t just give up when things get hard,” Parrish snaps. “You have to persevere–”</p><p>“Fuck me, are we doing this again?”</p><p>“Doing <em>what </em>again?”</p><p>Parrish has that awful look on his face again, the same one from the couch, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, and Ronan sees his lips framing the words<em> squandered every opportunity, </em>hears<em> stowaway</em> in the back of his head like a slur. He hears every shitty comment Declan’s made about him wasting his life away, sees the disappointment in Gansey’s eyes, feels the anger rushing to the surface, zero to one hundred, no time to put on the brakes, and before he knows it he’s saying, “This whole<em> I’m so much better than you because I work so hard</em> act. Give it a rest already! You think anyone in this room gives a shit about your sad-ass life? They don’t care that you killed yourself to get here. They’re never gonna care.”</p><p>Parrish’s careful mask falters and with it Ronan sees the very thing that’s been haunting him since the first loop. That look of bone-deep misery and humiliation.</p><p>“Fuck,” he says. “That came out wrong.”</p><p>Adam turns around and leaves.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” Ronan says again, and follows after him. “I didn’t mean it how it sounds, okay? I didn’t – Adam, wait.”</p><p>“Leave me alone,” he says, as he makes his way towards the door.</p><p>“I can’t leave you alone. We’re stuck together.”</p><p>“Well go stand over there, then. I don’t want to talk to you.”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t listen, just rushes to catch up. “I didn’t mean it how it sounds, man. I wasn’t trying to–”</p><p>“Wasn’t trying to what?” Adam spins around. “Humiliate me? Put me in my place?”</p><p>Ronan shakes his head. This is not what he wanted at all.</p><p>“I know I must look so <em>stupid</em> to you,” he says, “trying so hard for something you’ve never had to think twice about. I know most people in this room look at me and see some pathetic pity case, someone beneath them. I know they’re never gonna care. I don’t want them to care. I don’t care about any of them.”</p><p>Adam has a good poker face, but Ronan’s never been easily deceived. He thinks of Adam’s careful indifference, the thorns, all that stubborn self-reliance, and he sees it now for what it is: a last-step defence mechanism for a guy that cares too much.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ronan says. It doesn’t come easy to him, owning up to his mistakes, but he knows this one is overdue. He’s already messed up so much, but he can’t bear to mess this up too. “I shouldn’t have said it.”</p><p>“Which part?”</p><p>“All of it. Any of it.” He takes a deep breath, then adds, “And the other shit too. On the couch. I was looking for a reaction, all right? I wasn’t trying to, fuck, I didn’t think you’d care so much. I didn’t think it’d hurt you.”</p><p>Adam watches him for a long moment, long enough to make Ronan uncomfortable. He waits for judgement, for the icy dismissal that Adam does best.</p><p>But that’s not what he gets.</p><p>“I don’t think I’m better than you,” Adam says, finally. “I’ve never thought that.”</p><p>Ronan snorts. “You’d be right to,” he says. “I’m a terrible fucking friend.”</p><p>Some of the coldness in Adam’s eyes melts away. He looks away and says, “Me too.”</p><p>It’s not forgiveness, not exactly, but it’s something. An olive branch extended, an opportunity to claw back from the shitty person he was moments before</p><p>Ronan wants to take it.</p><p>“I should be sorry, too,” Adam says, before Ronan can respond. “I was an asshole to you. A real asshole. I wanted to make you feel small.” <em>Small, the way you made him feel</em>.</p><p>He frowns, then adds, “I don’t wanna be like that anymore.”</p><p>And fuck. Neither does Ronan.</p><p>“Parrish,” he says, “It’s forgiven,” and he means it. He can’t hold what Adam said against him when he’s said so much worse. All those dumb, offhand comments that he thought hadn’t hit the target, the constant needling, <em>Parrish, Parrish, look at me, Parrish, </em>because of jealousy, insecurity, chronic fear of being replaced. All of it was so damn stupid. It’s only kept him from seeing the obvious – that Adam is funny and whip-smart and unlike every other shiny Harvard asshole that Gansey’s befriended. That he’s unlike anyone, period. That he’s brilliant.</p><p><em>Well, shit</em>, Ronan thinks to himself. <em>Where did </em>that <em>come from?</em></p><p>“Oh my god,” Adam says, and for a brief second Ronan worries that every thought in his head has made itself clear on his face for the whole world to laugh at. But he’s not looking at Ronan. He’s looking at that damned couch.</p><p>“Stoner dude,” he says.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The guy from the couch,” Adam says. “The one that heard us fighting. Where did he go?”</p><p>“There’s been no one on this couch the whole–” Oh, right. He sees the problem, now.</p><p>“If he’s not here,” Adam says, “then where the hell is he?”</p><p>Good question.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>aah this chapter has been frying my brain. I wanted it to feel a little chaotic but I think I overshot by a mile and made it too chaotic? lemme know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm real sorry I couldn't get this chapter up last weekend. I thought about splitting it in two but there wasn't a natural end point, so I hope you guys don't mind an extra long late chapter instead! Pretend it's an early birthday gift for Adam Parrish. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What did he look like?”</p><p>“I thought you remembered this part.”</p><p>“Yeah, the important parts,” Ronan says. “How the fuck was I meant to know some random pothead was gonna hold the clue to saving my mortal soul?”</p><p>Adam’s ashamed he<em> didn’t</em> consider that some random pothead would hold the clue to saving their mortal souls. He’d been so distracted by Ronan that night, so caught up in his anger and humiliation and the need to dissect their argument within his head, that he hadn’t thought twice about the guy sitting beside them, or the significance of his parting words.</p><p>Now he feels real stupid. What was it Stoner Dude had said again? <em>You wanna die alone? </em>And that’s exactly what they’d both done.</p><p>Adam’s never believed in coincidences.</p><p>Could Stoner Dude be in a loop, too? Was he speaking from experience and not just issuing a warning? Maybe he can help them. Maybe they can all help each other. Maybe that’s been their true purpose all along, and that’s why Adam’s and Ronan’s attempts to play hero have all failed so miserably. Good things come in threes, and all.</p><p>“C’mon, Parrish,” Ronan says.“I can’t find the fucker if I don’t know what I’m looking for.”</p><p>“He’s not here. I’ve already looked.” And looked, and looked, and looked. He’d checked every room of the house several times over, and no such luck. What he <em>did </em>see, though, was another hallucination, by the coat rack again. Same kid from before with the unevenly cropped hair, the faded red t-shirt, the too-familiar bruise on his cheek. There’s no denying it anymore. It’s definitely him.</p><p>His child self is haunting him, and it looks like Adam’s the only one in on this particular cosmic joke.</p><p>“Parrish –”</p><p>“Okay, fine. He was…” Nondescript. Forgettable. Plain, baggy clothes, average weight, average height, no unusual facial features. He could be anyone. “He looked like a stoner, I guess.”</p><p>“Real fucking helpful. What does that mean?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Long hair?”</p><p>“What colour?</p><p>“Blond.” Or had it been brown? “Maybe brown?”</p><p>“Pick one.”</p><p>“It was a mix of the two, okay? I’m not a colour expert.”</p><p>“Jesus.” Ronan runs his hands over his head. “We’re screwed.”</p><p>Adam would point out that the defeatist attitude is not conductive to their situation, but that didn’t work out so well the last time. He tries instead to visualize that fateful first night. He’d already been sitting on the couch for ten, fifteen minutes before Stoner Dude showed up. Had Stoner Dude spoken to anyone before arriving? Had he spoken to anyone after arriving? No, not that Adam can recall. He’d just looked at Adam and giggled.</p><p>But he must’ve come here with someone. He can’t have just appeared out of nowhere. Someone at this party has to know who he is.</p><p>And Adam knows just who to ask.</p><p>“I think I know how to find him,” he says.</p><p>He wants to think that the resultant look on Ronan’s face is one of admiration, but that could just be wishful thinking. There’s no telling where he stands with Ronan after that fight. After that <em>apology.</em></p><p>Are they friends now? Does Adam want that?</p><p>Does Ronan want that, when he could do so much better?</p><p>“Right.” Ronan doesn’t sound like he knows <em>what</em> he wants, at least not where Stoner Dude is involved. He glances around the room, foot tapping restlessly at the floor. “Okay, good. You concentrate on finding that asshole, I’ll finish retracing my steps.”</p><p>“Are you insane?” Adam says. “We can’t split up.”</p><p>“Why the hell not?”</p><p>“You know why not. We’re supposed to keep each other from dying.”</p><p>“You got us killed twice now. I’m probably safer away from your cursed ass.” Ronan starts making his way towards the front door. Adam falls into step beside him, rushing to keep pace.</p><p>“Lynch-–”</p><p>“We just spent this whole damn night following my footsteps,” Ronan says, and that gives Adam pause. “I’m not giving up now just to go down another goddamn rabbit hole.”</p><p>“We’re not giving up,” Adam says. “I’ll come with you as soon as I find–”</p><p>“You are not getting this, man. I’m sick to death of not knowing what fucking happened.”</p><p>Adam does get it, he really does. Ronan’s on edge for good reason, and Adam can’t hold that against him. But if Stoner Dude has answers about the loop, if he can tell them why it’s happening to them and why their attempts to save each other aren’t having any effect, why Adam’s being<em> haunted by himself</em>, then Adam has to know. It’s the best lead they have right now, far more promising than whatever secrets Ronan’s forgotten memories may hold.</p><p>He’s pretty sure nothing in Ronan’s head can explain the mess in Adam’s own.</p><p>“And you think I’m not?” Adam asks. “I’m as clueless here as you are.”</p><p>“It’s not the same.”</p><p>They come to a standstill on the landing. Ronan’s gaze flits to the elevator, and Adam’s horror-struck by the realization that Ronan absolutely is mad enough to jump in that death trap again if it gets him away from Adam and this conversation.</p><p>Then his attention turns to the stairs.</p><p>“You’re messing with me,” Adam says. “You fell<em> three times</em>.”</p><p>“Exactly. I gotta face this shit eventually,” Ronan says.</p><p>“Do you, though? Do you really?”</p><p>“Fuck you, Parrish. This is science in action. Exposure therapy.”</p><p>“That is not how exposure therapy works.”</p><p>Ronan cracks his knuckles. He shakes one leg out, then the other, like some poser readying for a marathon. The group of students leaning against the wall shoot them both funny looks. Adam laughs nervously and nods in their direction, and the tallest of the group rolls her eyes before saying something that makes the others laugh.<em> Bullied by my Harvard peers in a luxury apartment stairwell</em> might be a new low.</p><p>And now Ronan’s doing arm stretches, holy god. Adam needs to put a stop to this.</p><p>He reaches out and grips Ronan’s forearm before he can move onto stretching his damn pinkies one by one.</p><p>“What the hell, man?”</p><p>“You’re stalling,” Adam says, although now he’s painfully aware of the way he’s touching Ronan with his own clammy hand, and why did he think that was a good idea? His hand’s so sweaty it’s going to leave nasty imprints on Ronan’s skin, and when did he last wash? Is there dirt beneath his nails? Can Ronan–?</p><p>“I’m getting myself ready.”</p><p>Oh. Right. Focus.</p><p>“We’re walking down the stairs, not heading to advanced yoga class.”</p><p>Ronan nods, staring blankly ahead. He doesn’t shake Adam’s hand off, which is cool. Fine. Whatever. Adam doesn’t care either way.</p><p>“Why don’t we go back inside,” he suggests. “We can find out who Stoner Dude is <em>together</em>, and then we can find your memories.”</p><p>“Sure.” Ronan scoffs. “And then maybe you can tell me what you saw that drove us off the road last night, since we’re all in this together now.”</p><p>“That was–”</p><p>“Don’t say it was nothing. You’ve been seeing it all night, I <em>saw</em> you looking at it.”</p><p>Something twists in Adam’s chest. He hadn’t expected Ronan to notice that, to even be thinking of that with everything else going on right now. He’s used to being the silent observer, not being watched himself.</p><p>Words queue up at the back of his throat – <em>If I promise to tell you, will you promise not to go off on your own</em> – but he can’t force them out. It’s too much, an admission of vulnerability, of failure, a tipping of the scales between them. He doesn’t want Ronan to ask questions, to wonder at things Adam’s not willing to give up. <em>Why him, Adam? What does he want from you?</em></p><p>Ronan must take his lack of response for the answer it is, because he says, “Figures,” and shakes Adam’s hand off.</p><p>“Lynch–”</p><p>“It’ll be fine, Parrish. You deal with your shit, I’ll deal with mine. Got it?”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t wait for an answer. He launches himself down the stairs the same way he launches himself into everything, with wild, thoughtless abandon. Adam’s always taken Ronan’s recklessness for a lack of fear, but now he reconsiders. It’s not that Ronan’s fearless; it’s that he doesn’t care about consequences, whether it be death or a fate much worse.</p><p>Adam watches until Ronan’s out of sight. He listens for the tell-tale sound of someone stumbling down those stairs, but it doesn’t come.</p><p>Looks like Ronan doesn’t need him, after all.</p><p>-</p><p>“I need your help.”</p><p>Gansey’s face lights up in a hundred-watt smile. It’s possible (nay, <em>probable</em>) that he’s been preparing for Adam to say these magic words since the minute they walked into each other’s lives.</p><p>Adam’s not sure how much use he’ll be in his inebriated state, but one thing he’s sure of is that Gansey will at least try to help, sober or not. Setting up shop in people’s lives and taking their messes on as his own is what Gansey excels at, and this is Adam giving him an in.</p><p>“Of course,” he says exuberantly, and thankfully he doesn’t sound <em>that </em>drunk. “Anything you want, Adam.”</p><p>Adam wishes he didn’t sincerely mean that, but experience has taught him that there’s no low Gansey wouldn’t stoop to in order to make a friend happy. If Adam tells him he’s just murdered his roommate and stuffed the body under the bed, he’s 98% sure that Gansey would hitch a ride to the dorms right this second and set about doing some damage control. He’d pay the best defence lawyer in the state and then ask him to lie to Adam about representing him pro bono. He’d give a supportive character witness testimony under oath. He’d visit Adam every day behind bars, until he found a new friend to fix his car and the void Adam left in his life could be neatly filled, good as new again.</p><p>He’d probably still send birthday cards, though.</p><p>Has Adam told Gansey when his birthday is? He hopes not.</p><p>“I’m looking for someone,” Adam says. “I think you invited him to the party.”</p><p>“Well,” Gansey says, “I can certainly help with that. What’s his name?”</p><p>“That’s the thing. I don’t remember.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“He’s in my chem lab,” Adam improvises. “I need to ask him some questions about the report.”</p><p>Gansey stares at him blankly, but Adam holds his gaze, undeterred. He’s not going to offer up an explanation as to why he’s spending his time at a party obsessing over titration experiments. He’s Adam Parrish; that should be explanation enough.</p><p>“All right,” Gansey says, after a while. “What does he look like?”</p><p>“Long, sort of blond hair? Pretty average on all accounts?”</p><p>Gansey continues to stare.</p><p>“Looks like a stoner?” he offers up.</p><p>“Ah! Yes!” Gansey says. “I believe I know your man.”</p><p>Gansey being friends with everyone under the sun sure has its advantages, at times.</p><p>Gansey takes a sip of the drink in his hand and then launches into a tale about freshman orientation and the variety of “wonderful creatures” he’d hit it off with and subsequently lost track of. Adam makes his best effort to appear interested rather than resentful, steering Gansey back on track whenever he launches onto another tangential point, of which there are many.</p><p>He’s slurring his words by the end, but he does get there eventually: Jesse Richardson. Pre-med. They crossed paths at a green medicine initiative meeting and the rest is history.</p><p>Why was Gansey at a green medicine initiative meeting in the first place? Well:</p><p>“I was curious!” he says, because of course. “The club president made a fascinating selling pitch.”</p><p>At least now Adam knows Stoner Dude is a real person and not a phantom, <em>Ghost of Regrets Past</em>. The only struggle is finding him and figuring out what the hell his deal is.</p><p>He wants to call Ronan and update him on his progress, wants to know about <em>Ronan’s </em>progress, but then he remembers he doesn’t have Ronan’s number. Never thought he’d need it.</p><p><em>I don’t need it</em>, he tells himself. <em>Ronan’s dealing with his shit on his own and I can do the same with mine.</em></p><p>“Was that everything?”</p><p>Adam looks up and finds Gansey watching him rather intently. For a guy that’s been drinking all night, he seems startlingly lucid all of a sudden.</p><p>“Yeah, thanks,” Adam says. “You’re a lifesaver.”</p><p>Gansey smiles at that, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. If it were always this easy to make Gansey happy then Adam might actually be able to say he’s good at it.</p><p>Then he says, “I can talk to him for you, if you’d like,” and Adam remembers why he never comes to Gansey with his problems. <em>Pet project</em> comes unbidden to Adam’s mind. Just because Ronan apologized for saying it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.</p><p>“Oh, you don’t need–”</p><p>“No, no, I insist! I’ll put a good word in.”</p><p>“That’s all right.” Perhaps Gansey is more perceptive than Adam gives him credit for. He clearly never bought the chem lab story. “I’ll manage.”</p><p>“Adam,” and it’s almost a plea, “it’s no trouble at all. We’re friends, aren’t we?”</p><p>“Of course we are.” He looks around the room, for Blue, or maybe Henry, but then a hand wraps around his shoulder, heavy and imposing and catching him by surprise. Adam’s not prepared for it. His body tenses and he jerks away.</p><p>“Sorry about that,” Gansey says, or Adam thinks he does. There’s blood in his ears, the one that works at least.</p><p>He knows, rationally, that Gansey won’t think much of it. Or if he does, he’ll think Adam is jumpy, nervous, someone who hates surprises. It doesn’t matter but still he feels that hot rush of shame, <em>Why can’t you be normal, Adam, why’s everything gotta be a production</em>, so he laughs it off, makes his excuses and leaves the room.</p><p>He returns to the stairs, but this time there’s no one else around. It’s just Adam, blissfully alone, and that’s what he wants. Safety. Simplicity. No questions to answer. No one to appeal to.</p><p>No one except him and his phantom friend, his mirror self, but Adam’s got nothing to offer him at all.</p><p>He stares down the dark edge of the banister, detaching from the material world.</p><p>There are a lot of things the doctors don’t tell you about partial hearing loss. Things like, <em>expect to hate parties even more than you already did,</em> and<em> get used to subtitles, watching anything without them’s gonna be a real bitch</em>, and <em>you thought your urge to flinch at sudden movements was a problem before, just wait till you can’t hear where anyone’s coming from</em>. Adam’s adjusted to it the way he adjusts to everything, quickly and quietly. Couldn’t afford to take his time.</p><p>He likes to think, on his good days, that he’s gotten used to it, that the permanence of it no longer bothers him, that it’s as much a boring part of him now as his blue eyes or the freckles on his shoulders, but that’s just denial. He’ll never be used to it, not when every new setback is a stark reminder of how it all began. Whisky in his face, fist meeting skin, foot slipping off the edge of a stair. An accident in three acts.</p><p>An accident, he tells his college professors, when making the injury public knowledge becomes a necessity.</p><p>An accident, he reminds himself while sending half his wages back home, because his father never intended to go that far. On his good days, Adam likes to think that his father must feel ashamed. That, if given the opportunity, he’d apologize and really mean it.</p><p>It might not be the truth, but Adam Parrish is nothing if not an excellent liar. On his good days he almost believes it himself.</p><p>Adam stands there until he’s calm enough to face the party again. He turns, ready to go back inside.</p><p>His foot slips.</p><p>There’s a split second where Adam is hovering on the edge and the boy is standing over him, a grim-faced, detached observer, and then gravity kicks in and the air leaves Adam’s lungs and he’s falling, body cracking against cement, again, again, and his head’s a riot of colours, shifting and ephemeral, and he’s been here before, he comes here all the time.</p><p>Whisky in his face, fist meeting skin, foot slipping off the edge…</p><p>-</p><p>“Parrish, c’mon. Wake up!”</p><p>Adam bolts upright. He touches the back of his head, half expecting to feel blood, hot and sticky and matted to his hair. His head hurts, phantom pains that make him dizzy.</p><p>Ronan’s here now, looking down at him from where he’s stood at the foot of Gansey’s bed. Adam’s relief at the sight of him is instantaneous and shocking. He hopes to god it doesn’t show on his face.</p><p>“Did you remember?” Adam asks, once he’s got his bearings.</p><p>“Some of it,” Ronan says, and then offers up nothing more.</p><p>Adam supposes he’d be a real hypocrite if he pried. He scrambles to a sitting position and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He expects the kid to be there, hovering on the fringes, but it’s just him and Ronan now.</p><p>Adam far prefers it to any alternative.</p><p>“I got an ID for our man,” he says, mock serious, “Ready to bring him in?” and then relishes in the rewarding smile on Ronan’s face. He feels the tension fade out the room and he knows, without having to talk about it, that neither of them will be going off on their own again any time soon. Ronan’s demons must have cornered him, too.</p><p>-</p><p>A quick Facebook search through Gansey’s friends list brings up a profile for Jesse Richardson. It’s a perfect match. There’s even a bong in the background of his profile picture, which Adam thinks is either remarkably stupid or annoyingly naive, but then again, there’s a lot of leeway wealth and the right skin colour will afford you in this world.</p><p>“You could’ve just said he looks like a douche,” Ronan says, upon inspecting the photos.</p><p>“Then I would’ve been describing every guy in the room.”</p><p>Adam could’ve said <em>nearly </em>every guy in the room, but he’d be lying to save face, and that’s not his style. Ronan might be hot, but he’s still wearing jeans more expensive than any luxury Adam’s ever owned.</p><p>Ronan laughs, anyway, so Adam reckons being an asshole is worth it.</p><p>As the party gradually gets underway, they agree to split up on their search. Adam never strays too far, though, always keeping Ronan in his line of view. He feels the weight of Ronan’s gaze on him in turn and it’s a welcome presence he could get used to. It’s cautious, comforting, casual. It’s what they agreed to, is all. You never know when a steak knife might hit you.</p><p>He makes small talk with the guys from psych class because they don’t expect much from him and it keeps him facing the front door. They’re all more focused on the video game, anyway. Adam could describe all his deaths in detail and they probably wouldn’t blink an eye.</p><p>He puts a little more effort into talking with Henry, who is, as always, full of bright enthusiasm and keen to hear Adam’s opinions on his party playlist. Adam doesn’t know enough about these artists to really have an opinion, but he does have a newly-acquired knee-jerk reaction to that one particular Madonna song, and now that he’s thinking about it, where are there so many Madonna songs and only one or two by everyone else?</p><p>“And to think I once considered you a paragon of good taste,” Henry says. “Parrish, I won’t stand for this slander in my own home. Get out of my face.”</p><p>“This isn’t your ho–”</p><p>“Semantics! The point still stands.”</p><p>“Your point is balancing on a flimsy foundation. The slightest breeze and it’ll crumble,” Adam says, just to be contrary, and maybe also because Ronan’s close enough to hear him and snicker.</p><p>When the clock strikes nine thirty and there’s still no sign of their wanted man, they reconvene by the side of the living room.</p><p>“This isn’t working,” Adam says. “He’s clearly a no-show.</p><p>“We don’t know what time he got here at before.”</p><p>“If he’s in a loop it doesn’t matter. He could be anywhere right now.” Adam doesn’t think there’s any way he can ask Gansey for Jesse Richardson’s address without being subjected to the third degree. Besides, he’s not sure even Gansey will hold this much knowledge, or if it’ll do them any good to hear it. What are the odds Richardson’s spending his loop hiding out at home?</p><p>“What time did you find him on the couch?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“I didn’t,” Adam says. “He found me.”</p><p>“And you don’t have any idea where he came from?”</p><p>“If I did I would’ve told you by now.”</p><p>“Would you have?”</p><p>That’s a low blow. It’s not like Adam’s keeping secrets for the fun of it. He hasn’t told Ronan about the kid because it’s none of Ronan’s business. It won’t help Ronan’s situation to know about it.</p><p>“<em>Yes,</em>” Adam says, and whatever Ronan sees on Adam’s face must convince him, because he looks away. If Adam didn’t know better, he’d say Ronan was embarrassed to have brought it up.</p><p>“Okay, so he’ll either show up late or he won’t,” Ronan says. “We don’t know where the fuck else to find him, so…?”</p><p>“We stay put.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“And I sit on the couch like before.”</p><p>“Boom. You recreate the situation, I’ll look out for any diversions.”</p><p>“And if he doesn’t show?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. “Slow your roll, Parrish. We’ll get to that.”</p><p>It’s as good a plan as any. Adam takes his place on the couch, watching as Ronan lingers by the side of the room before merging into the crowd, there then gone. He’s doing what he said he’d do, what’s necessary, and that’s a good thing. Doesn’t keep his anxiety from spiking, though.</p><p>If the kid is here, Adam can’t see him. He prays to god it stays that way.</p><p>-</p><p>Adam waits, muscles tense.</p><p>He waits, expecting the worst.</p><p>He waits, and he waits, and then the unexpected happens: Jesse Richardson actually shows.</p><p>“’Sup, man?”</p><p>“Hi.” Adam watches as Jesse takes a seat on the other side of the couch. He waits for Jesse’s face to light up in recognition, amusement, anything, but it doesn’t happen. Jesse smiles at him in a friendly greeting gesture then tips his head back to the ceiling. Not the cosmic sign Adam was hoping for. Now what?</p><p>All this time Adam’s been so caught up in<em> finding</em> the guy that he hadn’t considered his plan of action for <em>confronting</em> him. He’d half-hoped he wouldn’t need to say anything, that Jesse would do all the talking for them, but if he’s in a loop he isn’t showing it. Maybe he thinks Adam can’t be trusted.</p><p>That’s understandable. Adam wouldn’t trust himself, either.</p><p>He can fix this.</p><p>“So, nice party, huh?” he says, and Jesse hums in agreement. “How’d you know Gansey?”</p><p>“Same way as everyone.” Jesse turns his gaze to Adam. He smiles wryly. “Dude’s, like, a legend on campus.”</p><p>“Right, I guess so…” Adam looks at the table. He frowns. It occurs to him that he is possibly the worst man for this job. <em>What would Gansey would do?</em> he thinks frantically, and then he blurts out, “What’s your name?”</p><p>He can picture Ronan making a dive bomb motion with his hand.</p><p>“Jesse,” Jesse Richardson says. “You’re Adam, right?”</p><p>“How’d you know that?”</p><p>“You’re Gansey’s friend.”</p><p>“Isn’t everyone here Gansey’s friend?”</p><p>“Right, but you and him are, like, tight, you know?”</p><p>Is that how it looks to outsiders? Or maybe just to Jesse, who’s so far outside of Gansey’s inner circle that even those on the fringes must look like the chosen ones in comparison.</p><p>“That doesn’t explain how you knew my name,” he points out.</p><p>“Hell, dude, I saw you around.” Jesse shrugs. “You’re noticeable.”</p><p>Is he? That’s the first Adam’s heard of it.</p><p>Then it occurs to him what Jesse Richardson means: of course Adam in his second hand sweaters and non-aesthetically ripped jeans is noticeable. Of course Adam sticks out like a sore thumb, especially when stood alongside Gansey in all his regal glory. Adam’s lips tighten. He’s at a loss over what to say that won’t immediately get him on Richardson’s hit list.</p><p>Luckily he doesn’t need to say anything, because Ronan chooses that moment to reappear.</p><p>“There you are,” he says, and throws himself down on the couch between them. He stretches out, an elbow pressed to Richardson’s side, an arm loped around the couch cushion behind Adam’s head. His leg’s flush with Adam’s, all casual contact that sets Adam’s skin alight.</p><p>“’Sup,” Richardson says, and Ronan nods back at him. He’s dropped his usual glower and almost looks fit for human contact, which is potentially the most surprising thing he’s managed all night. And it’s been a <em>long </em>night.</p><p>Ronan turns to him and says, “Did you find any?”</p><p>Adam’s only confused for a second before he realizes this must be part of Ronan’s plan, whatever that may be. He’s not entirely sure this can be trusted, but fine, he’ll play along. It’s got to be better than what Adam’s working with here.</p><p>“Nope,” Adam says, taking great care to look glum about it. “This place is hopeless.”</p><p>“Damn.”</p><p>Richardson’s resolutely not looking their way, which means he’s definitely listening. Adam lets out a resigned sigh and says, “What’re you thinking? Should we bail?”</p><p>“We could head to Czerny’s. That fucker’s always good for it.”</p><p>“You guys looking for something?” Richardson cuts in. “I might be able to help you out.”</p><p>Ronan’s answering smile is laced with smugness. “You got any weed on you, man? Fucking Cheng over there’s refusing to share his stash.”</p><p>Adam resists the urge to roll his eyes. Get the stoner stoned, nice one. Figures Ronan would go for the most obvious assault possible.</p><p>Richardson’s face doesn’t light up, not exactly, but he does look slightly less dead inside when he says, “That I can hook you up with, my friends.” Adam reckons that’s about as lively as he ever gets.</p><p>He waits until Richardson’s well out the way before turning to Ronan and saying, “Do you have a plan here or is this all an excuse to get high and ignore the actual problem?”</p><p>“Jesus, lighten up, asshole. I’m just trying to get him talking,” Ronan says. “You know you’re the exact kind of uptight fucker weed is made for, by the way.”</p><p>“I’ve made peace with my flaws,” Adam says, although he has to wonder if Ronan has a point. He’s only the second person to suggest as much tonight, after all.</p><p>Richardson returns with the “good shit” and a pipe and settles down at the end of the couch, forcing Adam into the middle. Adam watches him get the weed set up and pull a lighter out his pocket. He watches the substance flicker to life, that awful smell assaulting his nostrils. He watches Richardson and Ronan both takes practiced hits and then thinks, what does he have to lose? Ronan’s expecting him to chicken out, which is all the more reason to do it.</p><p>“Let’s see,” he says, and makes it a grab for the pipe. He takes a long inhale and immediately starts coughing.</p><p>“Careful,” Richardson says in that annoyingly placid voice. “You know what you’re doing?”</p><p>“Do I have moron stamped to my forehead?”</p><p>“Easy, man, easy.” Again with the voice. Adam really fucking hates this guy. “You know what I think, man, I think you’ve got a lot of defensive energy about you right now. You’re like, the cacti plant of people.”</p><p>Ronan’s full-on grinning now, and Adam decides he hates him too. Him and all his bright ideas. They should’ve cornered Richardson the minute he walked in the apartment and threatened the truth out of him. Anything’s a better alternative than listening to him patronize and make piss poor plant analogies.</p><p>Adam takes another hit, a lot more careful this time, and manages not to choke. All the while, Richardson’s rambling on about vibes in the room and the healing properties of marijuana and a whole bunch of other irrelevant garbage that you couldn’t pay Adam to listen to. He glances at Ronan, brows raised. <em>Now what?</em></p><p>“You know what I think?” Ronan says, commanding everyone’s attention. “I think life is just an endless fucking cycle, man. It’s a loop.”</p><p>So much for subtlety, then.</p><p>“How so?” Richardson asks. It’s impossible to tell where his head’s at. He’s sporting the same serene expression from before.</p><p>“You do the same shit every day, right? Make all the same mistakes, follow the same routine. And most people, they don’t break outta that cycle. They get off the ride when they die. Maybe not even then. I bet Purgatory’s just the same shit over and over, till you prove yourself or you don’t.”</p><p>“Dude, that’s bleak.”</p><p>“Fucking reality’s bleak.” Ronan’s gaze drifts to the pipe, now in Richardson’s hands. He motions for it, and Adam watches him carefully pack a second bowl and then light it up. He inhales, then holds it for a few seconds before letting out a smoke cloud that drifts right into Adam’s face. “This is good shit.”</p><p>Adam scoffs at that. He doesn’t feel any different at all.</p><p>“I think ‘good shit’ might be overselling it,” he says.</p><p>“Easy,” Richardson says. He doesn’t seem any different either, but it’s hard to say if that’s due to a shitty batch or extremely high tolerance. “First times are rough. My cousin, she was like, <em>I’m telling you I don’t get high, I’ve never got high</em>, and I said to her, like, chill out, I bet you’re not doing it right. You gotta inhale, don’t just swallow the shit. Here, c’mere, I’ll show you.”</p><p>“I got it, thanks.” He doesn’t need any more condescending pointers. He looks at Ronan and says, “If life’s a cycle how do you break free?”</p><p>Richardson doesn’t even look up at that, just tips his head back to the ceiling. How long do they need to drag this out for before he stops playing dumb?</p><p>“What do you think, Jesse?” Adam nudges him.</p><p>“Hell if I know,” he says. “You lost me.”</p><p>“You don’t ever feel like you’re stuck in a loop?”</p><p>“I got a life, man,” he says blandly. “Are you saying you don’t?”</p><p>“Whatever.” Ronan sets the pipe down on the table and climbs to his feet. “Cheng’s got pizza.”</p><p>With Ronan gone, the couch falls quiet. Richardson takes another hit and tips his head over the back of the couch. He twists around so he’s looking at Adam with that same goofy, blazed expression from the first loop. Adam’s brows furrow. There must be a way to get him talking. He can’t act obtuse forever. Doesn’t he <em>want </em>their help?</p><p>“We’ve met before, right?”</p><p>“Not properly,” Richardson says. “I’ve seen you with Gansey.”</p><p>“What about tonight?”</p><p>“What about tonight?”</p><p>Goddammit. No more beating around the bush. “You saw me before,” Adam says. “Ronan, too. You saw us fighting.”</p><p>“I don’t know if I’d call it fight–”</p><p>“Not tonight. The other night. The first night.”</p><p>Richardson stares at him blankly. This is impossible.</p><p>“The<em> loop</em>,” Adam blurts out. “You’re in one too, right? You were there the first night of mine, and then last night you weren’t. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”</p><p>“I’m not following,” Richardson says slowly. “Dude, I think the weed’s got you paranoid.”</p><p>How can he not be following? He has to know. He’s as much a part of this as Adam himself.</p><p>“Don’t play dumb,” Adam says. “You knew we were going to die. You warned me about it. You’ve been moving around during the loops.”</p><p>“<em>What loop</em>?”</p><p>“You know what loop!”</p><p>“Dude, you are fucking cracked.” Richardson scoots away. “You know I thought you were cool but you are not worth the effort, man. You gotta, like, get your head checked. You are not with it, you feel me?”</p><p>Adam gapes at him, wordless. This can’t be true. There has to be more to it than that. Richardson must’ve had an ulterior motive. He has to know more than he says.</p><p>He can’t have just been sitting here this whole time for <em>Adam.</em></p><p>But then Adam reconsiders everything through this lens. Richardson had only sat on the couch after Adam was already there. He’d kept sitting there, staring, giggling, until Adam drove him away. He’d been missing last night, but Adam had been, too. He’d…god. He’d said Adam was noticeable. Had he been making a pass at him this <em>whole time</em>?</p><p>Adam shakes his head, not because he doesn’t believe it but because he doesn’t want to believe it. He’d thought there was a grand conspiracy here, when really there’s just some annoying stoner that’s a terrible flirt. And all that talk about karma, about dying alone, that was a coincidence after all. A Crazy, ironic coincidence.</p><p>Adam covers his face with his hands.</p><p>He hears Richardson muttering under his breath and leaving, and he doesn’t bother to look up. How could he have been so naive? Of course things weren’t this simple. They never are.</p><p>No one’s going to magically appear and explain what Adam’s problem is. Adam has to figure that out himself.</p><p>He sits like that for what feels like hours but, in reality, must only have been ten minutes. It’s enough time for Ronan to return, whole pizza box in hand, and slouch down beside him. He doesn’t ask what’s happened, but he must have some idea. He must know Adam led them to a dead end.</p><p>Eventually Adam moves his hands away from his face and lets out the longest sigh he can manage. It’s either that or start screaming.</p><p>Ronan drums his fingers on the arm of the couch. Then he turns to him, again on his frequency, and says, “You wanna get out of here?”</p><p>“Please,” Adam says.</p><p>-</p><p>They end up on the rooftop.</p><p>Ronan argues that it’s the best place to hide from Henry, who did not give Ronan a whole pizza out of the kindness of his heart.</p><p>Ronan’s lying back now, hands behind his head, pizza done and dusted, and after some deliberation Adam opts to do the same. The more time he spends around Ronan, the more he begins to understand the appeal of heights. Sure it’s still frightening to look over the edge, knowing how easy it would be to make one wrong move and watch your whole life slip out of your control, but the feeling of the wind on his face, cool and sharp, makes it almost worth it. Up here is a different world where he’s free from the constraints of the one down below, where he can cast all his worries aside, at least for a little while.</p><p>There’s only so far Adam can run from it, though, so after a long stretch of silence he says, more for his own sake than for anyone else’s, “I wasted our time.”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t respond straight away, and Adam wonders if he’s even listening. But then he says, “It’s not like it’s in short supply.”</p><p>“That’s not the point. We could’ve been retracing your steps but I dragged us on a wild goose chase for nothing.” Adam sighs. “You knew it was a dead end, didn’t you?”</p><p>“I didn’t <em>know</em>.”</p><p>“But you thought it was a possibility.”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a half-eaten Twix bar. Adam thought the high had worn off by now, but maybe not. Then again, Ronan’s never needed drugs in his system to eat enough for two people combined.</p><p>“Felt too convenient,” he says, and takes a bite. “Nothing’s ever that convenient.”</p><p>Of course it isn’t. Adam should’ve known from the start.</p><p>“Look, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got plenty of time to figure this shit out,” Ronan says. “At least you tried.”</p><p>“What good is trying if it doesn’t get us anywhere?”</p><p>“What happened to Mr You Have To Persevere?”</p><p>Adam scoffs. Yet another thing he was wrong about. Adam’s spent his whole life persevering, and it still landed him here, dying every couple of hours and seeing things in the time between.</p><p>“Did you mean what you said down there?” he asks, and Ronan raises his brow. “All that Purgatory talk?”</p><p>“I thought you heathens didn’t believe in heaven and hell?”</p><p>“I’m not saying I do. Just. It’s an interesting theory.”</p><p>“It’s a bullshit theory,” Ronan says. “I just wanted to make that asshole talk.”</p><p>“Oh.” Of course Ronan was bluffing. Adam feels stupid for asking.</p><p>“We’re not dead, Parrish. Don’t get all doom and gloom catastrophic on us now just ‘cause you hit a single setback.”</p><p> “I’m not–”</p><p>“You think I don’t know how your mind works by now? You’re freaking the fuck out in there.”</p><p>The wildest part is that it’s true. The wildest part is that Ronan’s gained a better understanding of Adam in the last week than anyone else has in his entire life. Where’s the sense in that?</p><p>He doesn’t know everything, though. He doesn’t know the half of it. Adam’s always been unknowable, even to himself.</p><p>“It’s not that I’m mad about being wrong,” he says, and Ronan gives him a look that says <em>yeah, right.</em> “It’s not <em>just</em> that I’m mad about being wrong,” he amends. “It’s that for a second I thought this was about more than just us.”</p><p>“We help each other, we break the loop,” Ronan says. “Isn’t that what we agreed on?”</p><p>Adam wanted to think so, but it’s been days and nothing has changed. He’s been with Ronan all this time and he hasn’t been able to change his fate. It’s not enough to know what to do next, not if they don’t know why this started.</p><p>And if the reason why this is happening to them isn’t due to some grand, external purpose, then it has to be internal. Something about Adam and Ronan is all wrong, faulty wiring, a glitch in the system, and this is the universe’s attempt to correct it.</p><p>Adam can fix many things, but he can’t fix what’s inside him.</p><p>“I think we’re what’s wrong,” he says. Isn’t that what the universe has been telling them all along? Ronan, who drinks so much he can’t even remember dying. Adam, who spent his last minutes talking to a woman that resents being his mother. The two of them fighting on the couch, aiming for the jugular, knowing the exact words that would cause the most damage. Adam’s child self watching him fall down those stairs, here to remind him that he’ll never escape his roots.</p><p>Death came to them because they chased it down themselves, spurred it on with their own actions. That’s the truth of it.</p><p>That’s the cycle that Adam will never be able to break.</p><p>“Speak for yourself, Parrish,” Ronan says. “I’m a fucking delight.”</p><p>A laughs bubbles out of Adam’s chest, catching him by surprise. <em>Not all doom and gloom</em>, he tells himself.</p><p>“I left a voicemail on my brother’s phone the first night,” Ronan says. “Did I tell you that?”</p><p>“Was that before or after you left the apartment?”</p><p>“After. I retraced my steps to this deli round the corner. Was standing there staring at the fridges when it came back to me. Must’ve called him at least three times and he didn’t pick up, so I left a voicemail telling him to go fuck himself.”</p><p>Adam can tell the story’s not complete, so he asks, “That was it?”</p><p>“No.” Ronan’s lips twist in a sneer. “I said if he crashed on his way back to DC, you couldn’t pay me to go to the funeral.” He pauses, lets the words sink in, then says, “Can you imagine waking up to a message like that and then finding out the asshole who sent it just croaked it? Fucking karma for you.”</p><p>“You were drunk,” Adam says. “You didn’t mean it.” But Adam knows better than anyone that intentions don’t count for much. His father didn’t mean a lot of the things he did, either, but the end result is all one in the same.</p><p>“Right, like it makes a damn difference,” Ronan says. “Declan would’ve had to live with that being the last thing I ever said to him.”</p><p>“Family’s complicated.”</p><p>“Not all the time,” Ronan says. “Most of the time it’s simple. Most of the time it’s all about fuck-ups letting you down over and over again ‘cause you’re too scared or too stupid to make a fuss about it.”</p><p>Adam’s thoughts linger on the phone in his pocket that’s been turned off for the last three loops. Point taken.</p><p>“If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one that spent his last minutes making a pathetic phone call.”</p><p>“Let me guess: that asshole that won’t stop hounding you?”</p><p>“They’re family,” Adam says. “Most days I like to think that doesn’t mean anything.”</p><p>“I’ve tried that before,” Ronan says. “You can’t outrun them forever.”</p><p>-</p><p>It’s late when they make their way downstairs. Most of the guests are gone, save Blue and Henry and a few hangers-on that are draped over various chairs and appliances. The whole apartment’s a bomb site, but no one seems particularly concerned about cleaning up.</p><p>“Oh, you’re back,” Gansey slurs sleepily, from where he’s sprawled on the couch. “I thought you’d left forever.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, old man,” Ronan says, watching him with unabashed fondness. “Who the fuck else would put up with us?”</p><p>Blue and Henry come stumbling over arm-in-arm to join the group, a flailing, four-legged, singing creature.</p><p>“Richardman!” Henry draws out the word in an off-key melody. “To bed with you, Richardman.”</p><p>Blue wraps her free arm around Gansey’s shoulders and pulls him up and into the huddle. He smiles fondly and presses a kiss to her forehead, and Adam’s struck yet again by the overwhelming amount of love Gansey has for all these people. It’s a love that’s pure and simple and untouched by things such as money or power. He cares about their happiness, and they care for his. He’d care about Adam’s too, if Adam let him.</p><p>
  <em>Course you always were selfish.</em>
</p><p>“I need to go,” Gansey says, looking in Ronan and Adam’s direction. “My mother…” And then he giggles.</p><p>“Forget your mother,” Henry says. “You only live once, my friend!”</p><p>Adam and Ronan look at each other and share a fleeting smile. Not if you’re them, you don’t.</p><p>“You two,” Blue starts and points at them, but she doesn’t finish the sentence, weighed down all of a sudden by a boy that’s already half asleep and drooling. “To the room?” she says to Henry, leaning up on her toes to stare at him over Gansey’s drooping head.</p><p>“To the room,” Henry declares. The three of them set off, a mass of gangling limbs.</p><p>“Looks like we’re on clean-up duty,” Ronan says, and Adam shrugs. He doesn’t mind so much.</p><p>Ronan barks at the remaining guests and shuffles them out the door. Adam gets a trash bag from beneath the sink and sets about clearing up what’s manageable. He hasn’t done this much manual labour in almost two weeks, and oddly enough, he finds himself enjoying it. There’s something immensely satisfying about having a task to complete and knowing he’s actually capable of it. He appreciates the simplicity of it.</p><p>They don’t get all the mess, but they get enough of it that anyone waking up tomorrow won’t feel as though they’re facing off an insurmountable task. Ronan sets the last of the trash bags down by the front door and then dusts his hands off. He looks at Adam and says, “You think that’s it?”</p><p>Adam gets the feeling he’s not talking about the mess in the house.</p><p>He looks at the clock on the wall. It’s after three, and they’re still here. What are the odds?</p><p>“It might be.”</p><p>Ronan asks him if he’s staying over, then, and truthfully Adam hadn’t considered an alternative. He looks at the couch, which is really the last place he wants to sleep after everything that’s transpired tonight, but he’ll make do.</p><p>He doesn’t get the chance to, though, because before he knows it he’s being steered in the direction of the hall. And that’s fine, too. Cool. Whatever. Adam doesn’t care either way.</p><p>They pass by Gansey’s room, where the sounds of heavy snoring are prominent even with the door closed. Ronan calmly leads them forward before stopping outside the room at the end of the hall. Ronan’s room. Adam’s been here before, so it’s no big deal. He steps inside.</p><p>Last time in here, Adam had been taken aback by how little of Ronan’s personality had seeped out into his surroundings. Bare white walls, clothes strewn haphazardly across surfaces, a discernible lack of keepsakes or valuables. A space that did not belong to him, where life was endured rather than experienced. A waiting room where you bid your time in transient moments until real life began. Much like Adam’s dorm, and the bedroom before it.</p><p> This time though, he looks a little closer, and catches glimpses of the Ronan he’s learning about buried in unexpected places. A box on the desk that Adam had overlooked before but now realizes is bird treats. A textbook on Welsh history peeking out from beneath a pile of jeans. A knitted black scarf and glove set draped over the chair. The paint pot he’d spotted before, still hidden in the corner of the windowsill.</p><p>Ronan is the asshole that leaves nasty voicemails on his brother’s phone, but he’s also the guy that nursed a baby bird back to health and still cares for her when she visits. He’s an artist plagued by self-doubt and insecurities. He’s the guy that loves his friends enough to research their crazy obsessions or to display the handmade gifts they crafted for him in a room where he displays so few belongings of his own. He’s the partner in crime that’s spent this whole night talking Adam down from the cliff top, the one person in Adam’s life that cared enough to apologize when he did something wrong.</p><p>Ronan pulls the blind down and then settles on the edge of the bed, back facing Adam. He shucks his boots off one by one, then begins pulling off his shirt.</p><p>Adam is frozen in place, fixated. He looks away. He looks back.</p><p>There’s a tattoo sprawling the entire length of Ronan’s back, an intricate snare of black vines rippling over muscle. It’s mesmerizing. Adam can’t look away. It’s art.</p><p>Mouth dry, stomach in knots, he’s hit with a sharp stab of desire. Of course he knew Ronan was hot. It’s an indisputable fact, one of the earliest impressions Adam ever had of him. Savagely handsome, all sharp edges and danger signs warning people away. Look, don’t touch, and wasn’t it just as well that that’s the motto Adam lives his life by?</p><p>Adam follows the intricate labyrinth of ink trails until he feels himself getting overwhelmed. He wants, very much right now, to touch.</p><p>He snaps out of it and turns to face the door.</p><p>“Have you got an extra pillow?” he asks, twisting the handle. “And a blanket, too.”</p><p>“Oh.” He hears what sounds like a zipper being pulled, and dear god, what did he do to deserve this? “I think Gansey has some.”</p><p>“Okay.” Adam pulls the door open a crack.</p><p>“Fuck that, you don’t wanna go in there. Blue acts like the fucking demon spawn from hell when you wake her up.”</p><p>“I could sleep on the couch, then.” He still won’t have a blanket, but it’s better than the floor.</p><p>“Or you could get over yourself and take the other side of the bed.”</p><p>Adam does not think that’s a good idea, but if he makes a fuss then Ronan’s going to think he’s uncomfortable for the wrong reasons. Or worse, he’s going to realize the effect he’s having on Adam. No way he’ll ever let Adam live that one down.</p><p>Adam carefully closes the door and turns around. Ronan’s already under the covers, head turned the other way. Adam pulls his shoes off, then after a moment’s thought resolves on taking his jeans and shirt off too. Ronan would be a hypocrite to care.</p><p>He leaves his t-shirt on, though. He’s not that bold.</p><p>“You really think we’ll wake up tomorrow?” Ronan asks, once Adam’s safely beneath the covers.</p><p>“Let’s hope so.”</p><p>He hums beneath his breath. Adam shifts, tries to get settled. He’s acutely aware of the space between them.</p><p>“What’ll you do tomorrow?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“If we wake up. What are you gonna do?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he says. “Finish my sociology paper, I guess.”</p><p>“Fuck off, you crazy bastard.”</p><p>“What? Sorry I don’t plan on failing all my classes just because we lived to see Saturday.”</p><p>When’s it due?”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“The paper. When’s it due?”</p><p>Adam hesitates before saying, “Two Fridays from now.”</p><p>Ronan bursts out laughing, and Adam can’t help but joining in, never mind that it’s at his expense. It’s infectious, that happiness. He’s immensely pleased to be the cause of it.</p><p>The laughter dies down after a few minutes and they lapse into silence. Adam wonders if it’s wrong to talk about this, wrong to hope. Anything could happen overnight.</p><p>He wonders what Ronan will say, if he wakes up tomorrow and finds Adam still here. It’s a whole different world, back in reality.</p><p>He wonders if, just this once, he doesn’t have to deal with all his shit all on his own. If it’s okay not to want that anymore.</p><p>“Ronan?”</p><p>He hears Ronan fidgeting, perhaps turning towards him. “Yeah?”</p><p>Adam keeps his eyes trained on the door. He can say this, so long as he doesn’t have to look at him. He can…</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p><em>It’s a band-aid</em>, he thinks.<em> The sooner you rip it off, the better.</em></p><p>“There’s something…” He pauses. “That thing I’ve been seeing…It’s me.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“He’s been following me since the rave. Me, but younger.” His grip on the pillow tightens. He takes a breath. “I don’t know why I’m the only one seeing him, or what it means, or if it’s even connected to the loops. Maybe I’m just losing my mind.”</p><p>“You’re not.”</p><p>“Then how come I’m the only one this is happening to?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Fuck. Are you sure it’s you?”</p><p>As sure as he is of anything. The unevenly cropped hair, the faded red t-shirt, that too-familiar bruise on his cheek…</p><p>But Adam doesn’t want to think about that.</p><p>He waits for Ronan to ask questions. It’s inevitable. He’ll want to know about Adam’s past and what bearing it has on their present. He’ll want to draw connections. He’ll want the truth, and Adam’s never given that to anybody, but he will lay it out now in all its filthy, ugly glory if that’s what Ronan asks for. He deserves to know the screw-up his fate is tied to. He should know that he deserves better.</p><p>“Is he here right now?” Ronan asks.</p><p>Adam doesn’t look around, but he shakes his head. He’d feel it if he were.</p><p>“Okay,” Ronan says. “If he comes back, you tell me and we’ll deal with it.”</p><p>“You don’t know what it is.”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter. We’ll handle it, okay?”</p><p>Adam shuts his eyes. The sincerity in Ronan’s voice is too much. It’s more than he ever would’ve thought to ask for.</p><p>“Okay,” he says gently. Some of the tension in his shoulders drops.</p><p>Adam has no idea what comes next, if he’ll wake up here tomorrow or back again in Gansey’s bed, but as the room falls quiet he no longer feels the urge to wonder. He buries his face in the pillow, taking in the familiar scent of Ronan’s cologne, and lets his mind drift off to the sound of Ronan’s steady breathing beside him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm on <a href="http://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com">tumblr</a> now if anyone wants to come say hi! Also thanks so much to everyone who's been reading and commenting. The response to the last chapter really blew me away!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I haven't been posting chapter-specific warnings but I feel like this chapter and some of the upcoming chapters might warrant them, so from now on I'll include them in the end notes.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ronan wakes to sunlight hitting his face.</p><p>He groans and buries his head in the pillow, but it’s no use. He’s still facing the window. He rolls over and stretches his arm out, his hand brushing against soft skin. Skin that is not his.</p><p>Adam Parrish is sleeping in his bed.</p><p>Awareness jolts Ronan’s body like an electric shock. Adam’s still here. Ronan’s still here. They’re both still here, and it’s <em>Saturday</em>. Is it Saturday?</p><p>Ronan throws the covers back and stumbles out of bed.</p><p>Gansey and Cheng are both already awake and in the kitchen. Cheng’s eyes gleam when he catches sight of Ronan. He lets out a startlingly loud wolf whistle that makes Ronan glower and Gansey complain about his headache before covering his ears with his hands.</p><p>“Back off, perv.” Ronan makes a crucifix symbol with his hands.</p><p>“Why, Lynch, don’t flatter yourself. You may have been blessed with disarmingly good looks but you are most definitely not my type,” Cheng says gleefully. “I’m looking for a man with a soul.”</p><p>Ronan could point out that Cheng’s latest conquest had been in possession of neither good looks <em>nor </em>a soul, but it would only bring up follow-up questions over how Ronan knows about that when Cheng didn’t speak to him last night. Last thing he needs is Cheng believing that Ronan pays any more attention to him than he has to.</p><p>“Tell that to your face, then,” he says instead.</p><p>“I’m merely trying to be supportive,” says Cheng. “And anyway, what is a little  attraction between friends? Isn’t all friendship romantic, as the poets say?”</p><p>“Good one,” Ronan says. “You should put that in your cult manifesto.”</p><p>He makes his way over to the sink and pours a glass of water, downing it all in one go before looking up at the clock. It’s just struck ten thirty, which means it really is Saturday morning, and this twisted horror movie is over, and it’s back to normality and the regularly scheduled bullshit of before.</p><p>He should be happy, he <em>is</em> happy, but it’s all tangled up amidst that ever-present numbness. An end to this loop means a return to the other, more permanent one, and there’s little worth celebrating about that.</p><p>Another set of footsteps pads across the floor and Ronan turns around, expecting Adam, but it’s only Blue. She’s wearing PJ pants that must be Gansey’s because they’re about three times the size of her, and her face is twisted in a scowl even more severe than his own.</p><p>“Ugh,” she says, and takes the free seat across from Gansey. “I shouldn’t have had those shots.”</p><p>Gansey reaches across the table and pats her shoulder consolingly. Cheng nods glumly and says, “I think we’re all in a state of regret this morning, Bluebird.”</p><p>“<em>Lynch</em> doesn’t look so bad.” She says it almost accusingly, as though Ronan’s sobriety is real cause for concern.</p><p>“I’m your litmus test,” he says. “Now you know you’ve fucked up.”</p><p>“I don’t believe I saw Ronan drinking at all last night,” Cheng muses. “Of course, he was rather distracted.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s <em>right.</em> I forgot. You and–”</p><p>“Fuck the two of you,” Ronan says, but it has no effect. They’re both giving him these creepy-ass smiles that make him want to throw holy water in their faces or set the room on fire. Maybe both, in that order.</p><p>“Is he still here?” Blue asks, and that makes Gansey perk up, suddenly tuning into the conversation.</p><p>“Are we talking about Adam?” Even hungover and half dead to the world, Gansey can’t keep the adoring tone out of his voice. He looks between them, brows furrowed, clearly trying to catch up. Then his eyes widen and he says, “Oh, Ronan, you didn’t…”</p><p>It stings more than Ronan expects it to, more than he <em>wants</em> it to. He knows he’s a trainwreck, but there’s a difference between being aware of all the ways you’re lacking as a person and having your best friend point it out to the whole damn world.</p><p>“Jesus, Dick, don’t get your panties twisted,” he snaps, and Gansey at least has the decency to looked ashamed. “He was here and it was three in the damn morning. What did you want me to do, kick him out to the streets?”</p><p>“You kicked out Henry Broadway,” Cheng helpfully points out.</p><p>“Broadway didn’t help clean the house.”</p><p>“The two of you spent the whole party together,” Blue adds on.</p><p>“Don’t you meddling assholes have lives of your own to worry about?”</p><p>“This is all rather out of left field,” Gansey says. “I could’ve sworn you and Adam hated each other…” He stares back down at his coffee as though it holds all the answers he’s seeking. Ronan shoots a dark look at Tweedledum and Tweedledee, a real <em>see what you’ve done?</em> number. Cheng holds his hands up, the picture of faux-innocence.</p><p>Blue rolls her eyes and says, “Since you’re over there, you may as well get me a coffee.”</p><p>“Oh, I’ll have some too,” Cheng says. “Can you make it iced?”</p><p>“Does this look like fucking Starbucks to you?” Ronan backs away from the kitchen counter. “Oh, and by the way, Sargent, you’ll never guess who Cheng hooked up with last night.”</p><p>He quickly retreats from the room, but not before hearing Cheng shout, “That is a low blow, Ronan Lynch!” and Blue yell, “What the <em>fuck </em>is wrong with you? Don’t you have <em>morals</em>?” Letting Cheng know he pays attention doesn’t have to mean letting him think Ronan cares.</p><p>He gets cleaned up before returning to the bedroom to get dressed. All the while, Adam carries on sleeping, oblivious. He’s curled up in a position that frankly looks uncomfortable, all hunched in on himself like he’s afraid to take up space. His face is half-pressed against the pillow, fair hair splayed out around him, and even during sleep he still has that little furrow between his brows, never fully settled. Ronan would wake him up and break the news, but he has enough experience by now to know how difficult such a task is. Adam clearly needs the rest.</p><p>Ronan tries not to stare at him too much. He’s not a creep, and he’s also not stupid enough to think any of this means anything, at least not in the way he’s realizing he’d like it to. Adam’s here because the universe forced it on him. It’s less<em> fated romance</em> and more <em>mutual babysitting gig</em>.</p><p>Ronan’s last attempt at dating had been short-lived, another exercise in self-destruction. He wouldn’t know what to do with a good thing if it were handed to him, so it’s just as well that their time in Purgatory’s up and they can put this whole mess behind them. This isn’t who they’d be, if given the choice.</p><p>There’s a knock on the door just as Ronan’s putting his boots on. Seconds later, Gansey peeks his head inside.</p><p>“If your girlfriend spilled Cheng’s blood all over the floor, that’s on them,” Ronan says. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”</p><p>“They’re fine now,” Gansey says. “Or at least I hope they are.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t bet on it.”</p><p>“I have faith in them,” he says. Ronan gives him a dubious look and he adds, “Sometimes.”</p><p>“Ha!”</p><p>Gansey’s still lingering, clearly waiting for an opportunity to come out with whatever’s on his mind. Ronan sighs and asks, “What’s up?”</p><p>“I didn’t mean to imply that it would be a <em>bad</em> thing,” Gansey says, “if you were to, you know…” He nods his head at Adam.</p><p>Ronan can’t believe this is a real conversation they’re having. Curse Gansey and his ever prevalent tendency to put his foot in his mouth. Curse him for his even more prevalent tendency to <em>realize </em>he’s put his foot in his mouth and apologize. Curse him for everything, but <em>especially</em> for caring about Ronan’s life in the first place.</p><p>Ronan wants to laugh the whole thing off, but Gansey would see right through that. Ronan doesn’t do nice things just for the sake of it. He doesn’t let just anyone wander into his room, or stay the night. So Adam’s presence is a question mark that demands investigation. Ronan can’t explain the surreal sequence of events that led to this current moment, and he can’t claim this thing between them is really a thing at all, so he’s left with no weapons in his arsenal to ward off Gansey’s well-meaning, if overbearing, concern.</p><p>“Can we not do this right here?” he says, and directs a pointed look at Adam. Gansey’s eyes widen comically. He nods and shuffles out of the room, leaving Ronan no choice but to follow suit.</p><p>Ronan’s only just shut the door over before Gansey starts rambling.</p><p>“Of course I’d have no problems with it, if you and Adam were to see each other, anyone would be lucky to date you, not that it’s my business either way, and of course you’ve made it clear that’s not what’s going on here and I would never assume you a liar–”</p><p>“You sound batshit fucking insane right now, I hope you know that.”</p><p>“Yes,” Gansey finally takes a deep breath, “I realize that’s one way of looking at it.”</p><p>“Is there any other way of looking at it?”</p><p>He sighs. “I’m happy you’re both getting along,” he says. “I’ve wanted this for months.”</p><p>“That’s all you had to say, man.”</p><p>“Yes, well, I do have some quest–” Gansey takes one look at Ronan’s face and cuts himself off. “But I realize, of course, that I’m already overstepping.”</p><p>“Oh, you just realized that?”</p><p>Gansey opens his mouth and then shuts it again. He’s going to be weird about this for weeks, analyzing every conversation they’ve ever had as though it might explain this sudden overnight shift from enemies to friends. Ronan doesn’t have the patience for it, and he’s not ready to listen to Gansey get ahead of himself and say some wildly offensive shit again, so it’s just as well that Gansey’s leaving today for DC.</p><p>“What time’s your flight at?” he asks.</p><p>Gansey, thankfully, sees the out and takes it. “Check in’s at one fifteen.”</p><p>“Have you seen the time right now?”</p><p>He rubs his face with his hands and shakes his head. “I’m not sure I’m up to facing them in my current state,” he says. “Or any state.”</p><p>“You’ll have to be,” Ronan says. “I’m not spending the night fending off Republicans from the damn door.”</p><p>“Have I ever told you what a massive help you are in a crisis?”</p><p>Recent events have proven Ronan’s uselessness in a crisis, but he’s not about to get into that. They’re on the other side of it now. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore. So he smiles wryly and says, “I might’ve heard that one before.”</p><p>-</p><p>It’s a twenty minute drive to Logan International. Ronan offers to drop them off because it’s not like he’s got anything else to do, and because getting behind the wheel is the best option for clearing his head.</p><p>Cheng sneaks his way into the backseat while Ronan’s shoving Blue’s and Gansey’s holdalls into the boot, and by the time Ronan notices he’s already strapped in and insistent on coming along for the ride.</p><p>“I’ve never bid anyone a tearful farewell at the airport before,” he says when Ronan attempts to shove him out onto the sidewalk. “Would you really deny me the chance to live out that fantasy?”</p><p>“You better not spew your guts out over my fucking interior,” Ronan warns, but he leaves him to it. It’s a beautiful day and all that jazz.</p><p>He takes the elevator back upstairs and finds Blue and Gansey still fussing over their goddamn looks in the mirror. Blue keeps taking the same pair of sunglasses off and on, lips pursed. Ronan snatches them out her hands and dumps them on the shelf she can’t reach.</p><p>“It’s February, asshole,” he says, when she puts up a protest. “You wanna look like that douche?”</p><p>“I’m going to the Gansey estate,” she says. “Looking like a douche is a requirement.”</p><p>“You’re wearing half a million clips in your hair. Don’t act like you care about conventions.”</p><p>She sighs and grumbles, “How obvious is it I’m hungover?”</p><p>“More obvious than you think if you’re expecting some shitty sunglasses to hide it.”</p><p>“You’re a terrible person,” she says, “but a lot more reliable than Gansey.”</p><p>“You’re welcome, gremlin.”</p><p>Adam’s the last to leave the apartment, lingering like the world’s saddest ghost while Gansey runs back and forth picking up shit he’s forgotten to pack. He stands watch as Gansey locks the door behind him, then nods at the stairs before Ronan can follow Blue and Gansey to the elevator. Right, damn phobias.</p><p>“We’ll catch up,” Ronan says, when the others look up. Gansey’s eyes bulge out his head, but before he can pester them Blue presses the button to shut the elevator doors. <em>You owe me,</em> she mouths at him.</p><p>“Does this feel weird to you?” Adam asks as they make their way down the stairs. For a moment Ronan thinks he’s talking about the two of them and whatever it is they’re doing now. Is it weird to carry their friendship into the waking world when it was forged under stressful circumstances? Is it confusing? Are they better off going right back to how everything was before?</p><p>Ronan doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t want to think about Adam’s answer.</p><p>He’s going to shrug the dilemma off, but then he catches sight of that wary look on Adam’s face and he realizes it’s not about them at all. It’s about this whole situation.</p><p>“We kept each other alive, we broke the loop,” Ronan says. “Case closed. Your crazy nerd brain saved the day.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he says slowly. He’s still looking at the stairs like they’re going to swallow him whole.</p><p>“What else is there to know? We fixed it.” <em>Adam</em> fixed it. He puzzled out the mess in front of them and saw to it that they looked out for each other, because he’s brilliant and clever like that.</p><p>Adam does not seem particularly convinced by his own brilliance or cleverness. “What about your first death, then? What about the kid?”</p><p>“Have you seen him since you woke up?”</p><p>“No, but–”</p><p>“But what? We’re in the clear, Parrish. Let it go.”</p><p>“I thought you wanted to know how you died.”</p><p>He didn’t die, so it doesn’t matter. None of it matters because none of it was real.</p><p>Ronan shrugs. Adam gives him that look that says he’s evaluating Ronan’s sanity.</p><p>“So you don’t wanna know why any of this happened, then?”</p><p>“What I wanna do is put it the hell behind me.”</p><p>Silence. They make it to the ground floor in one piece – <em>would you look at that, Parrish, even the death trap stairs can’t touch us now</em> – and Ronan thinks that’s the end of it. Back to normality. Adam can go spend the day on his own writing his damn sociology paper if he’s this hellbent on being miserable. But before Ronan can open the front door, Adam reaches out and taps his shoulder. It’s a light touch, barely felt over his jacket, but Ronan’s skin still lights up from the contact.</p><p>Ronan turns on his heels. Adam’s standing there, shoulders tense.</p><p>“I want this to be over as much as you do,” he says, “but this isn’t right. You know it’s not right.”</p><p>Ronan knows that things in his life haven’t been right for a long time, now. He suspects things haven’t been right in Adam’s life for much longer. He said it himself, they’re what’s wrong, and that’s not going away any time soon, possibly ever. A return to the norm just means a return to fucking things up without the chance for a do-over.</p><p>“The only thing I know is Gansey and Blue have a flight to catch,” he says. “Now are you coming or not?”</p><p>He’s not expecting Adam to get into the car, but he does. He slides quietly into the backseat, forcing Blue and Cheng to shuffle over. Gansey, already seated up front, does a double take. He shoots Ronan a pointed look that says<em> we are talking about this the minute I get home</em>, and what does it say about them that Adam accepting a ride without protest pings Gansey’s weirdometer while Ronan actually explaining the loops didn’t have him batting an eye?</p><p>Ronan doesn’t make any attempt at replying. He can feel several sets of eyes on him but he ignores them completely. He starts the engine and peels out of the parking lot.</p><p>“Are we dropping you off at the dorms, then?” Gansey asks Adam, all measured politeness.</p><p>“That’s okay,” Adam says. “We have plans later, anyway.”</p><p>“Plans?” Ronan doesn’t have to see Cheng’s face to know he’s grinning ear to ear. “What kind of plans?”</p><p>“You know what I think we need?” Ronan cuts in. “Some music.”</p><p>“No!” everyone shouts in unison.</p><p>He laughs to himself and turns the radio on. Drum and bass blares from the speakers, causing everyone besides him to start groaning.</p><p>“Dear god,” Gansey says. “That’s not even music. That’s an affront to all that humanity stands for.”</p><p>“Your fucking polos are an affront to all that humanity stands for.”</p><p>“One doesn’t negate the other, you know,” Blue says, and Gansey lets out an indignant squawk.</p><p>Ronan checks on Adam from the rear view mirror. He doesn’t look annoyed but he’s not laughing or smiling like the others, either. He might be sitting here in person but he’s not really with them. He’s retreated somewhere far inside his head, and Ronan knows it’ll take more than some scintillating conversation to pull him back out.</p><p>Ronan’s foot itches to press down on the accelerator. If he were still in Singer’s Falls, if it was just him and Adam and miles of open road, he could really let loose and actually drive instead of crawling behind traffic. He could get both their hearts pounding in time with the bass and get Adam smiling that real, true smile of his, the one that says he’s really here.</p><p>Ronan’s not in Singer’s Falls, though. He has no reason to go back there ever again.</p><p>What’s left to look forward to, then?</p><p>He pulls onto the I-90, which is thankfully not as busy as usual. He’d been expecting gridlock for miles, but going the speed limit rather than a snail’s pace is an actual possibility, for once. He shifts into the center lane and then tunes back into the conversation.</p><p>“You know what they’ve got you?”</p><p>“Just some money, I reckon. I told them not to go all out.”</p><p>“<em>Just</em> some money, he says, like it’s nothing special.”</p><p>“You see, Ganseyman, this is why your ‘no presents’ rule was a bad call. What are you supposed to do with more money?”</p><p>“Spoken like someone who’s never gone without a trust fund before.”</p><p>“Nonsense! I don’t need presents. I would never hold a party just for the excuse of forcing my friends to buy gifts for me.”</p><p>“Dude, that’s the only good reason to ever hold a party,” Ronan says, and he’s met with approval from Cheng and disgust over materialism from Blue.</p><p>“I don’t believe that,” Gansey says, “and I know you don’t either. This, right here, is exactly what parties are for.”</p><p>“What, the hangovers?”</p><p>“The <em>togetherness.</em>” Gansey gestures to everyone in the car. “All of my favourite people, right here, bonding under the one roof. This is better than any gift I could’ve asked for.”</p><p>It’s the most Gansey of Gansey speeches, so over-the-top sentimental and Hallmark-esque, and Ronan can’t help making fake gagging sounds in response. Everyone in the backseat laughs along, even Adam, and that alone makes it worth it, even if it puts that disappointed frown on Gansey’s face.</p><p>“I mean it,” Gansey says. “I’d take all of you anywhere with me.”</p><p>“Jesus, old man.” Ronan scoffs. “We get it. You’re twenty going on eighty-two.”</p><p>Gansey and his cloying sentimentality, Gansey and his knack for taking in sad-sacks like they’re stray dogs, offering friendship and loyalty and a place to stay when their real homes aren’t an option anymore. Ronan has to make fun of him for it, because otherwise he’d have to consider just how imbalanced their friendship is and always has been. Gansey would take Ronan anywhere, and Ronan would blow his birthday party off to drink himself stupid and get himself killed.</p><p>But it’s over. It doesn’t matter. He can do better now. He can take things more seriously. He can answer the phone. He can…</p><p>
  <em>What else is there?</em>
</p><p>“Ronan?” Adam calls from the backseat. There’s an edge to his voice, one that gets Ronan’s nerves buzzing.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“What’s wrong is that music of yours,” Cheng cuts in before Adam can open his mouth. “Are you ever going to give someone else a turn?”</p><p>“To be fair, it <em>is</em> Ronan’s car.”</p><p>“And this is a democratic nation.”</p><p>“Ha! America is the furthest thing from–”</p><p>“Ronan, something’s not–”</p><p>He sees the semi in the mirror seconds before it hits.</p><p>There’s a moment where he’s aware of the crash but can’t feel it, only sees the air-bag exploding in a talcum fog, hears the crunching of metal, the screaming, the persistent thud of the bass. Then momentum kicks in and he feels pain slicing up his spine, rocketing in his skull, hammering in his chest, and the BMW’s spinning, screeching, tipping on its side–</p><p>He must’ve blacked out, because the next thing he’s aware of is lying on his side, crushed between one solid weight and another, head, ribs, neck aching. He tries to breathe but there’s an awful, piercing pressure in his lungs. His vision swims around him. He’s aware of nothing besides the awful stench of burnt rubber and smoke…</p><p>“Ronan? God, no, Ronan, can you hear me? Ronan, <em>please</em>–”</p><p>He can’t tell if he’s awake or dreaming. Everything’s fuzzy and everything hurts, and the <em>smell…</em></p><p>“Ronan, c’mon, wake up. Please wake up.”</p><p>There’s so much terror in Gansey’s voice. He’s crying. Ronan wants it to stop but he can’t open his eyes, he can’t breathe, he can’t do anything right. His body’s all pressure points and he can feel himself losing focus…</p><p>“Is he…oh, god. No. <em>Ronan</em>…”</p><p>Hands on his chest, pushing, prodding. Voices shouting back and forth, words he can’t make sense of. And above it all, Gansey. Gansey calling his name, pleading for him to wake up, dammit, please wake up–</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan wakes up.</p><p>Sunlight’s hitting his face but when he stretches out he feels nothing but cool and empty bedsheets beside him. The Beach Boys are warbling a few rooms away about Good Vibrations.</p><p>He’s alive. He’s alone.</p><p>He’s going to throw up.</p><p>Ronan stumbles to the toilet right on time and spews up whatever the fuck he ate the night before. He can’t get that rubber stench out of his head. It’s in the air around him, suffocating.</p><p>He can still hear Gansey crying.</p><p>He sits there with his back against the door, breathing rapidly, shuddering, for long enough that the song on the radio becomes Dusty Springfield, becomes Jimi Hendrix. He’s died so many times he should be used to it by now, but the other times were different, quicker, simpler. The other times didn’t involve listening to his best friend grieve.</p><p>Is this what it was like for Gansey that awful summer? After the accident? Sitting outside in the waiting room with Declan and Matthew, poised for bad news. How many times will he have to go through that because of Ronan? How many times is this going to continue?</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>Adam was right: they’re what’s wrong. The only thing Ronan’s good for is creating suffering in others.</p><p>There’s a half-litre of Tito’s left in the cupboard. He takes a few shots and then a few more, enough to get buzzed. It’s just to take the edge off, to lessen the sting, that’s all.</p><p>He empties out a plastic water bottle he finds in his room and then tips the rest of the drink inside. Just a precaution, just a safety net, in case the smell comes back.</p><p>He leaves the car behind and walks. Forty minutes to Harvard, in the sun, dressed all in black. That warrants a few more sips, for hydration. No need to over-think it.</p><p>His phone’s back at the apartment. He’s got no shitting clue what the time is. He knows where Gansey will be, though, if he’s not still in class. Gansey’s a creature of habit; he frequents all the same spots, and Ronan’s had them memorized for months. It’s just a matter of locating them.</p><p>He wanders around the campus, dazed and dizzy, dodging students and tourists alike, until he finds what he’s sure is the right library. He’s stopped by here a few times before to pick Gansey up. Sometimes Adam, too, but he wasn’t Adam then. He was insignificant, an interloper, Gansey’s awful, shiny new friend.</p><p><em>Christ</em>. Had Gansey watched the two of them die?</p><p>He sits on the grass, fumbles with the bottle cap and takes another drink. By the time he spots Gansey crossing the quad, the bottle’s half done.</p><p>“Ronan?” Gansey’s face is a picture of concern, all tight-lipped, brows furrowed. His eyes catch on the bottle in Ronan’s hand and the effect multiplies. “Is something wrong?”</p><p>Ronan gives no response because the only true response would be that it’s everything. He looks around at all the buzzing, lively students walking in and out of halls. He looks so out of place here it’s a wonder no one’s staring.</p><p>He says, “What time is it?”</p><p>Wrong answer. Gansey’s eyes bulge out their sockets.</p><p>“I left my phone at the apartment.” Better, but only slightly.</p><p>“It’s just after two,” Gansey says slowly. “What are you doing out here?”</p><p>“Nothing, man, Jesus. I was bored.”</p><p>“You were bored…” Gansey’s giving him that careful look that Ronan’s grown all too accustomed to, the one that says <em>are you okay or should I be worried about you slitting your wrists right now?</em> He climbs to his feet and dusts his jeans off, which maybe wasn’t the best idea. He’s sure he looks a lot worse for wear up close.</p><p>“You studied physics before, right?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“Uh, yes. We both did. At Aglionby.”</p><p>“I don’t remember that class.”</p><p>“That’s probably because you never showed.” Gansey frowns. “Have you had a sudden change of heart about academia? Because I can get you in touch with–”</p><p>“Dude, get real,” he says “Do I look like I’ve been bodysnatched?”</p><p>Gansey doesn’t answer, just waits there patiently for Ronan to get to the point.</p><p>“Parallel worlds,” he says. “Is it possible?”</p><p>“You came all this way to track me down for a lesson on quantum mechanics?”</p><p>“English, man. I don’t know what the fuck that means.”</p><p>Gansey sighs. “What is this, Ronan?”</p><p>It’s that he’s been interacting with a different Gansey every day for the past two weeks, and he didn’t think for one second that any of them were real. He didn’t think of an infinite number of Ganseys and Blues and Declans and Matthews and Henrys and Noahs living on in a world without Ronan, picking up the pieces, suffering through the aftermath. He didn’t think that the shit he’s been saying and doing made any difference.</p><p>But if Ronan and Adam and the pain they’re experiencing is real, then all those people are too. Somewhere out there is a world, are <em>many </em>worlds, where Gansey loses his two best friends in one fell swoop. A world where Gansey keeps grieving long after the curtain’s pulled.</p><p>How is Ronan supposed to live with that?</p><p>“I saw this movie,” he says. “Guy died in one world and kept living in the next. Couldn’t wrap my head around it.”</p><p>“Ah,” Gansey says. He shuffles from foot to foot. “It’s an interesting theory, for sure. I’m sure the library will have some books on the topic, if you’d like me to peruse–”</p><p>“It’s cool, man. Don’t sweat it.”</p><p>Gansey’s still looking at him funny. He says, with a quirk of his brow, “You could always talk to Adam about it tonight, if you see him. I’m sure he’d know more about it than I do. Did I tell you he’s majoring in astrophysics?”</p><p>Ronan laughs, a resounding boom that startles Gansey even further.</p><p>“I’ll do that,” he says, and tips his bottled vodka towards him. “I will definitely do that.”</p><p>“Ronan…”</p><p>“You left the radio on, by the way,” he says. “Your oldies goldies bullshit woke me up.”</p><p>“Ronan–”</p><p>“Catch you later, Dick,” he calls, and starts walking away. Then, thinking better of it, he turns around and yells, “Drive safe.”</p><p>People are staring now. Gansey’s definitely staring now. Ronan doesn’t pay them any mind, though. He’s got lots of places to be. Fucking busy life he leads.</p><p>-</p><p>Declan’s waiting in the hall when Ronan makes it back to the apartment. He takes one look at Ronan’s face, at the bottle in his hand, and says, “Jesus Christ, Ronan. When’s the last time you shaved?”</p><p>Ronan curses him out, or at least tries to. The words get jumbled before he can get them out.</p><p>Declan crosses the hallway and gets an arm around Ronan’s shoulders. He unlocks the front door, having somehow acquired Ronan’s key, and steers them into the apartment. Ronan brushes him off and stumbles over to the couch. He throws himself down head first, flinging the empty bottle across the room.</p><p>“So this is what you’ve been doing these last few months.”</p><p>“Would hate not to disappoint.”</p><p>“That’s not–” Declan sighs and cuts himself off. “I’m not disappointed, Ronan. I’m concerned. If you keep going like this–”</p><p>“I’ll end up dead?” Ronan can’t help smiling. The irony is too great.</p><p>Declan’s face shuts down, emotion there then gone before Ronan has time to parse it. The room falls deadly silent and he stares his brother down, waiting for the inevitable lecture, for<em> You’re a waste of space </em>or <em>I’m done chasing after you, you selfish asshole.</em></p><p>It doesn’t come.</p><p>When Declan does speak, it’s not anger that laces his words but quiet despair. “I’m glad someone can find this funny.”</p><p>The smile slips from Ronan’s face.</p><p>The thing about <em>the accident</em> is that it wasn’t an accident. Not really. Ronan might’ve been drunk but he hadn’t been helpless. He’d known what he was doing getting behind the wheel of Dad’s car, tearing down country roads late at night, chasing a high that was really just annihilation in disguise. There were more effective ways of doing it – a razor, a noose, some pills – but he didn’t want to go out that way, as someone that demanded pity. This way was reckless. This way no one would care, or even know it’d been intentional. <em>What was he doing driving drunk in the first place? Sometimes you get what you deserve. </em>This way no one had to stumble across his corpse hanging from the garage ceiling, or bleeding out in the bathtub.</p><p>It should’ve worked. It <em>would’ve</em> worked, if he’d remembered to account for Declan.</p><p>No one ever remembers Declan.</p><p>“I’m kidding,” he says now. “I wouldn’t…”</p><p>He can’t finish that sentence how he wants to. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not a liar.</p><p>Declan crosses the room and sits cross-legged on the floor facing him. It’s a bizarre sight, an uncharacteristically childlike action for the guy that always resented being a child. He’d sneer about Declan getting his suit wrinkled but he doesn’t have the energy, and he’s not sure he really wants to, if he’s being honest with himself.</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you,” Declan starts, “about the house.”</p><p>This is the part where he tells Declan to go screw himself, to quit with the sorry-ass excuses and leave Ronan the hell alone.</p><p>“I know why you sold it,” he says, stunning them both.</p><p>“You do?” Declan raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“We’re in debt, aren’t we? Because Dad…”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Ronan.”</p><p>Funny that. Declan sounds like he really means it this time.</p><p>Ronan lies there, half-listening, as Declan goes into detail about all the shit he’s heard before. About Dad, about the business, about the Barns. He lets Declan tell the story without interruption, not even butting in when Declan gets into what a “struggle” it was to get rid of everything.</p><p>It’s not okay. None of this will ever be okay.</p><p>But it hasn’t been okay for Declan for a while.</p><p>“I wish you’d told me,” he says, once Declan’s finished.</p><p>Declan shuts his eyes. “I tried.”</p><p>“Like hell you did.”</p><p>“Ronan–”</p><p>“Screw this. I listened to your bullshit speech, now it’s your turn,” he says. “You had no right keeping all this from me.”</p><p>“I was trying to protect you, shithead.”</p><p>“And look how that worked out! You realize this would’ve been a fuck-ton simpler if I’d known what we were up against?”</p><p>“Are you saying you would’ve agreed to sell the house?” Declan asks.</p><p>“I’m saying I wouldn’t have spent months hating you for doing it behind my back.”</p><p>They shoot each other matching glares, but there’s little heat behind them. Ronan’s burned off all the remaining righteous fury he had, and he’s not sure Declan was really mad in the first place.</p><p>Declan yields first. “Look, here’s the thing,” he says. “I’ve got a potential buyer lined up.”</p><p>“Potential?”</p><p>“It’s a done deal,” he amends. “We’re just waiting for the paperwork to go through.”</p><p>Ronan knew this was coming, so it shouldn’t hurt. He knew this was coming, so he can’t get upset.</p><p>His eyes burn. He sucks in a breath, and if his voice shakes when he says, “When are they moving in?” then that’s his business, dammit.</p><p>“End of March at the latest.”</p><p>End of March. That’s less than two months away. Fifty days, give or take.</p><p>Declan rummages around in his blazer pocket and pulls something out. A house key. He sets it down on the coffee table between them, a white flag in no man’s land.</p><p>“You left most of your stuff there when you moved out,” Declan says. “I figured…”</p><p>Ronan reaches out and retrieves the key. He twists it around, holds it up to the light, but he already knows it’s the real deal. Declan wouldn’t have come all this way to play mind games.</p><p>“I’ll need it back by the end of this month. So if you’re going to use it, don’t leave it too long.”</p><p>“Okay,” he says quietly.</p><p>“There’s some old stuff of Mom and Dad’s in the attic.” Declan climbs to his feet and wipes his trousers down. “Whatever you don’t want, we can sell or move into storage.”</p><p>Ronan stands up too. He feels a lot more stable on his feet than he did before. He nods at Declan, a wordless thank you. Declan looks him over carefully, then shoves his hands in his pockets and turns to the door.</p><p>“Wait,” Ronan says.</p><p>Declan turns around.</p><p>He doesn’t know why he said it, or what he wants, until he opens his mouth and, “You didn’t come all the way up here just to give me a key, did you?” comes out.</p><p>Declan blinks. He looks stumped, as though Ronan’s finally managed to surprise him.</p><p>“I didn’t think you were capable of this much self-awareness,” he says.</p><p>“That’s not an answer, man.”</p><p>Ronan stares. Declan stares right back.</p><p>They’re not so different, sometimes, which is a real damn pity.</p><p>“My girlfriend’s got an exhibition in Boston tonight,” Declan finally responds.</p><p>“Your girlfriend’s an artist?”</p><p>“Yes, Ronan. Believe it or not, we grew up in the same house. You’re not the only one that appreciates art.”</p><p>“I was gonna say she sounds cool,” Ronan says, and Declan does that funny blink again. “You sure there isn’t a catch?”</p><p>“God, I hope not,” and have Ronan’s eyes deceived him or is Declan actually smiling?</p><p>Declan pats his pockets down, either searching for his car keys or looking for an excuse to hang around. He looks Ronan over again and says, “Are you going to be okay on your own?”</p><p>By which he means, <em>Can I trust you not to engage in life-threatening behaviour on your own?</em></p><p>Ronan shrugs. Gansey’s going to be back soon and with him comes Blue, and Henry, and the party, and everything he’s not ready to face. And Adam, who Ronan very much <em>would </em>like to face, but preferably not in a state like this.</p><p>“If I say no, are you gonna bail on your hot date?”</p><p>“It’s not a date,” Declan says, “and if you say no, you can have my extra ticket, you little pissant.”</p><p>It’s the last thing Ronan’s expecting, especially given how all their previous conversations have turned out. Declan couldn’t have planned this, but maybe he’d hoped for it. Maybe this feud was only a feud because Ronan needed it to be.</p><p>“I’ll think about it,” Ronan says, and Declan nods to himself and opens the door.</p><p>“If you’re coming with, be ready by six,” he says. “The traffic downtown’s a bitch.”</p><p>They’re not always so different, Declan and him, the brothers Lynch. Sometimes that’s not for the worst.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Trigger warnings for this chapter: mentions of attempted suicide and suicidal ideation. </p><p>Aaand we're halfway there! This is one of the chapters I was most looking forward to writing (the others are still to come and feature a lot more romance, lol), so I'd love to hear what you guys think! I spent a whole night watching car crash videos and reading horror stories online in an attempt at doing research and now I don't want to step foot in a car ever again. It's been fun!!</p><p>I'm on <a href="http://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com">tumblr</a> now if anyone wants to say hi! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I mean it. I’d take all of you anywhere with me.”</p><p>Adam crosses his arms over his chest, discomfort a tangible spirit beside him. He waits for his presence to be called attention to, for Blue or Henry to address the elephant in the room – <em>not Parrish, no, what do we know about Parrish? Who’s to say what he’s capable of, what he’s deserving of </em>– but the minutes tick by without reprieve and he’s left basking in the relief slash shame of slipping by undetected. It’s a familiar sensation, like holding the Aglionby acceptance letter in his hands before fate and circumstance could intervene, like eating dinner for the first night in the Harvard halls without anyone giving him a second glance. He is Adam Parrish, pretender, the cuckoo sneaking into another bird’s nest. How powerful, to get away with playing at something you’re not.</p><p>“Jesus, old man. We get it. You’re twenty going on eighty-two.”</p><p>The difference is that Adam worked for everything else he has. He worked for that acceptance letter, he worked for Harvard, he<em> suffered</em> for Harvard. He didn’t suffer for this. He didn’t do anything to earn this. He stumbled into Gansey’s life through happenstance, which means his place here is tenuous at best–</p><p>A prickling sensation at the back of his neck takes him out his thoughts. He looks out the window, but they’re driving so fast. He can’t see anything beyond the blur of other motors shooting by.</p><p>He can feel it, though, the wrongness of this. He’d be a fool not to trust his instincts.</p><p>“Ronan?”</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Ronan’s quick to respond, either because he hears the edge in Adam’s voice or feels the wrongness himself.</p><p>“What’s wrong is that music of yours,” Henry cuts in. “Are you ever going to give someone else a turn?”</p><p>“To be fair, it <em>is</em> Ronan’s car,” Blue says.</p><p>“And this is a democratic nation.”</p><p>“Ha! America is the furthest thing from–”</p><p>“Ronan,” Adam tries again, louder, “something’s not–”</p><p>-</p><p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>Awareness drifts back in fits and starts. Gansey’s room, Gansey’s bed, Gansey’s party. He was dead and now the day’s reset, and now he’s here again, and now he’s back at the party.</p><p>And now Ronan isn’t with him.</p><p>“Dude.”</p><p>
  <em>Metal screeching against metal, body rocking forwards and then back in quick, brutal succession. Blacking out and then coming to again on a stretcher. Blue’s face, hazy and unfocused, blood dripping from an unstitched wound. And Gansey crying, Gansey distraught, Gansey saying, “He’ll be okay, won’t he? They’ll both be –?”</em>
</p><p>“<em>Dude</em>. Shit!”</p><p>There are hands on him now, different from the ones before. Not the paramedics but the drunk girl from the party. He’s aware, then, that he’s breathing too heavily, that he can’t get enough air.</p><p>“Wait there,” the girl’s saying. “I’m gonna get help, okay? Let me just–”</p><p>He shakes his head, tries to speak, but all he manages is a raspy, “Don’t,” tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He’s too hot, burning through his shirt, and there’s a persistent ringing in his good ear, echoes of that awful metallic screech. The room sways and tilts when he tries to sit up. Is he dying again, for real this time? Is this what dying’s supposed to feel like?</p><p>He shuts his eyes, tries to focus. He isn’t dying because that comes later. He’s here, in Gansey’s room, and he’s fine. He’s not in the car anymore. He’s fine.</p><p>“Dude, you’re clearly–”</p><p>“I’m fine.” Deep breaths, slowly, counting seconds, then release. “Just leave me alone.”</p><p>Again. Again. He’s got this. He’s fine. He pictures himself lying on the rooftop with Ronan, all his worries pushed to the back of his mind. Studying for finals in the library with Gansey, the two of them crouched over textbooks as the snow fell thick outside. Gansey introducing him to Blue with a flourish at his New Year’s get-together, <em>and this is Adam Parrish, </em>Blue’s eyes kind yet wary, until he made a joke about one-percenters and she laughed–</p><p>Blood on Blue’s face. Gansey’s voice fading in and out, smaller than he’s ever heard it, <em>They’ll be okay, won’t they?</em></p><p>No, no, no. He’s got this. Deep breath, slowly, counting seconds, then release…</p><p>Adam’s there for an age. He’s there for a blink of an eye. Who’s to say. He sits there counting breaths till his heartbeat’s calmed down to a steady pace again. When he opens his eyes, he’s alone.</p><p>Well, not completely. There’s a crumpled note lying on the bed beside him, <em>Parrish </em>scrawled messily across the front. Adam picks it up with trembling fingers and unfolds it. He doesn’t recognize the handwriting, but the message is undeniably from Ronan.</p><p>
  <em>With brother. Be back soon.</em>
</p><p>Adam stares at the note for a long time – <em>alone again, you’re alone</em> – before scrunching it up and shoving it into his back pocket. Then he braces himself and leaves the seclusion of the room behind.</p><p>-</p><p>Blue and Henry are both in their usual spots, their words and actions woefully predictable. It seems absurd that they don’t remember the horror of minutes before, that it’s not all they’re capable of thinking about. A crash like that, so awful and life-defining, and yet it’s nothing to them, not even a blip in their happy existence.</p><p><em>This is why it had to be me</em>, Adam thinks to himself, the realization settling over him like a fog. Him and Ronan, who were never happy to begin with.</p><p>He needs Ronan’s number, or his brother’s address, or <em>something.</em> He looks around the room in search of Gansey but he’s notably absent. Come to think of it, he’s always absent at this time of night. Where does he go? Adam had initially assumed that Gansey was with Ronan, both of them following the same pattern set in the first loop, but of course that’s never been true. Ronan was off doing his own thing, which means Gansey’s loop must look different. He must be off doing something on his own, too.</p><p>Where, though? And why?</p><p>Adam drifts back into the hallway, side-stepping the couple that’s entangled on the floor. Gansey would never consider leaving his own party, so he must still be here, and the only rooms left besides his own are the bathroom…</p><p>And Ronan’s room.</p><p>Adam pauses outside the door, listening for movement, but it’s quiet. He lifts his hand and knocks, waits for the socially acceptable amount of time and then, when it’s apparent no one’s going to answer, he gently nudges the door open.</p><p>“Gansey?”</p><p>“Oh.” Gansey jumps to his feet. “Adam, you’re awake!”</p><p>“Is everything okay?”</p><p>“Yes, of course. I was just…” He looks around, and Adam follows his gaze to the textbook on the floor.</p><p>“You were hiding,” Adam says. “Weren’t you?”</p><p>“What? No. I would never–”</p><p>“Look, Gansey, you don’t have to lie about it. I get it.”</p><p>“I wasn’t hiding,” but it’s a weak defence. He takes one look at Adam’s face before sighing and slumping back against the wall.</p><p>Adam crosses the room and then sits down beside him. He doesn’t look at the bed he’d woken up in just a few hours before, or at the desk chair where he’d found his clothes so carefully folded, or at the window, where that tiny sliver of moonlight had snaked in, illuminating Ronan’s handsome face in the dark. That was a different world, a dream. Or a nightmare.</p><p>He flips Gansey’s textbook over to its front cover and sees it’s the same book from Ronan’s desk, the one on Welsh history. Gansey’s got it open at a chapter covering Edward I’s conquest of Wales. Adam gets the feelings he’s memorized the whole thing back to front.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to say, or if he’s really the right person to be saying it, but he’s the only person here. And Gansey’s dropped his guard, at least temporarily; that has to count for something. He wouldn’t give Adam a glimpse behind that exuberant, self-assured front if he didn’t feel like he could trust him.</p><p>“What I don’t get,” Adam says carefully, “is why you went to all this effort for a party you didn’t want to hold in the first place.”</p><p>“I never said I didn’t want to hold the party.”</p><p>“Oh, where did I get that idea? You’re only shut away in Ronan’s room reading a textbook with the lights off.”</p><p>Gansey’s lips twist in a barely there smile. “You never hold back, do you?”</p><p>“I hold back when the situation calls for it,” Adam says. “I’m not Ronan.”</p><p>“Forgive me for the mix-up. It’s not like the two of you have anything at all in common.”</p><p>Adam scoffs. If he was anything like Ronan, he’d be able to handle this. Ronan would know all the right things to do, the best way to distract Gansey and get him out of this room, because he knows Gansey. He knows how to be someone’s friend.</p><p>“Don’t think I can’t see you dodging the question,” he says.</p><p>Gansey frowns. He glances down at the textbook, fingers tracing the fraying edges. “It’s not what I thought it would be,” he says eventually.</p><p>“What did you expect it to be?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “A distraction?”</p><p>“From what, the burdens of late stage capitalism?”</p><p>Gansey smiles, but his heart is so clearly not in it. He gazes past Adam, at the room they’re in, and something clicks in Adam’s head. Gansey wouldn’t hold a party for his own sake, but he would do it for everybody else’s.</p><p>
  <em>All of my favourite people, right here, bonding under the one roof.</em>
</p><p>Except Ronan’s AWOL, Blue’s arguing with the masses, Henry’s resorting to ill-fated hook-ups, and Adam’s…well, he never considered himself part of any of this in the first place.</p><p>“It’s not your job to make other people happy, you know.” He can hear how he sounds, brusque, dismissive, harsher than intended. Maybe that’s what Gansey needs, though, for someone to lay it out for him that their mess isn’t his to clean up after. That it’s not his to worry about, period.</p><p>“Is that so wrong?” Gansey’s voice is so dreadfully earnest it hurts to listen to. “To want everyone I care about to be happy?”</p><p>“Not wrong, no,” Adam says, “but it’s not practical.”</p><p>“Why isn’t it practical?”</p><p>He shoots Gansey a flat look. It shouldn’t need explaining. It’s simply the law of the land: happiness is a finite resource, a privilege, much like money and power and wealth of opportunities. Some are born into it, some will seize it with claws and open mouths, but most will only ever catch a glimpse and spend the rest of their lives longing.</p><p>Gansey’s face falls. “Adam–”</p><p>“Don’t look at me like that.”</p><p>“Then don’t say things like that.”</p><p>“What’s that, exactly? Facts you don’t like hearing?”</p><p>“It scares me,” he says steadily, “that you can’t hear how wrong you are right now.”</p><p>Adam shrugs and doesn’t respond. Everything he wants to say is too cutting, too cruel, and he didn’t come here looking for a fight. It’s not Gansey’s fault that he can’t understand this. He’s never needed to.</p><p>
  <em>Gansey’s voice, smaller than he’s ever heard it, “They’ll be okay, won’t they?”</em>
</p><p>Of course happiness is finite; look how quickly it can be stripped away.</p><p>“Did I ever tell you about the time I died?” Gansey asks, out of the blue.</p><p>Adam’s eyes widen. “What do you mean, died?”</p><p>“My heart stopped beating. Well, for a minute or so. Probably less.” There’s a forced casualness to his smile; he’s memorized the facts of this story inside and out. “I’m allergic to bee stings, see, and we were out at a dinner party in the countryside. One of my dad’s friends, I think. He’d been elected…well, not that it’s relevant. The point is, it was terribly dull, and I wandered off. Everyone else was distracted, and I didn’t consider the threat, not that that would’ve stopped me.”</p><p>“And that’s all it took? Just one sting?”</p><p>“Oh, it was more than one sting,” he says. “I stepped on a nest.”</p><p>“<em>Jesus</em>.”</p><p>“My parents heard me scream and came running,” Gansey describes. “They had an EpiPen – I’d been stung before, as a toddler – but my symptoms were so severe. We had to rush to the nearest hospital.” He smiles then for real. “I got lucky.”</p><p>Adam stares at him, horrified. “Being nearly killed by bees isn’t what I’d call lucky.”</p><p>“Isn’t it, though? I could’ve died, but I didn’t. I was right there, on the brink, and someone saved me. I’m the definition of lucky.”</p><p>Adam wonders if Gansey would consider him and Ronan lucky too, if dying is all well and good so long as one comes back. He doesn’t feel lucky. Enduring the pain is the easiest part; it’s everything that comes after that’s a struggle.</p><p>“How old were you?” he asks.</p><p>“I’d just turned fourteen.”</p><p>“So this was before Henrietta, then? You spent years trailing around the countryside when you’re deathly allergic to bees?”</p><p>“I know how it sounds,” Gansey says. “Trust me, it’s been pointed out to me before. But I’ve always figured…well, look, I can’t let fear be the driving force of my life, can I? I mean, I was scared at first. Shit scared. I didn’t want to leave the house. My mom thought I was beyond help for a while. I think she had me talk to every child therapist in the state of Virginia.”</p><p>“And now?” Adam asks. “You aren’t scared now?”</p><p>“I’m scared every day,” he says easily. “I’ve just learned to manage it.”</p><p>Adam opens his mouth, but he can’t think of anything to say. Everything he knows about Gansey shifts in his head to make room for this unexpected puzzle piece. This new Gansey, a fearful, human creature, seems at odds with the one Adam knows, that one he <em>thought </em>he knew. Has he always been locked away, or had Adam simply not put the effort in to look?</p><p>“Anyway,” Gansey says, “I know that I have it easier than most. I have access to resources that a lot of people can’t afford. I have my parents, even if we don’t see eye to eye on some things, and then there’s my sister, and Blue and all her family. It’s like I said, I’m lucky.” He smiles ruefully. “But I don’t believe that’s all there is to it. Even when it’s a struggle, I think happiness is something we still get to choose.”</p><p>Adam’s chest feels tight. He feels hot all over, exposed. He turns away from Gansey, sure that every last piece of ugliness inside him has found its way to his skin, flaring up like a heat rash in the middle of June.</p><p><em>It’s different</em>, he wants to say. <em>I’m not built for it like you. </em>Because what’s the alternative, that he hasn’t tried hard enough? That he chose this? No, it doesn’t work that way. Ganseys are a different breed from the Parrishes of the world. They might fall down or trip over hurdles, but they’ll always be able to get back up. They have a template to work from.</p><p>“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” he says, but his voice is faint.</p><p>Gansey smiles sadly. “It doesn’t have to be, though.”</p><p>Adam wants to laugh. He wants to scream. His throat feels tight.</p><p>He stands up.</p><p>“Adam–”</p><p>“You should get back to the party,” he says, voice miraculously steady. “They’re missing you out there.”</p><p>-</p><p>Adam gets Ronan’s number and the name of Declan Lynch’s hotel from Blue and then books it out of the apartment. He feels worryingly off-kilter, either from the talk with Gansey or the panic of waking up or maybe just the crash itself. Maybe all three. It’s not something he wants to be dealing with in the middle of a party.</p><p>He waits till he’s safely on the ground floor before calling Ronan, then leaves a frustrated voicemail when he doesn’t get through.</p><p>“Answer your phone, Lynch. What happened to waking me up?”</p><p>He gives it five minutes and then calls again. Still no response.</p><p>“This isn’t funny, asshole. We had a deal.”</p><p>He’s across the road from the Freepoint Hotel when he makes the third call, leaves another voicemail purely out of spite.</p><p>“Look, maybe none of this matters to you, but some of us have lives we want to get back to. Call me.”</p><p>Adam hangs up and flips the phone over. It starts ringing before he can pocket it, his mother back with a vengeance. He ignores it and crosses the street.</p><p>The Freepoint is a wide, red-bricked expanse in the center of the street, all shrubbery and bright ceiling lights connected to an arched entryway. Adam hangs around outside, arms crossed. He can’t go in and just ask for the room number, and he’s not sure they’ll even be there. He’s got a feeling Ronan won’t go back to the apartment, though. Call it intuition.</p><p>It must be his lucky night, because not long after arriving a silver Volvo pulls into the parking lot. Ronan and another guy – his brother, clearly – both climb out.</p><p>If everything about Ronan’s appearance commands attention, everything about Declan’s suggests you keep on moving, please and thank you. He’s handsome, but in a way that’s so inoffensive it leaves little impression on the senses. He’s well dressed, but his clothes are all bland and conservative, offering no promises of a personality underneath. He’s got the type of face made to pass unnoticed through a cop line-up.</p><p>And yet, there’s no denying that him and Ronan are cut from the same cloth. They have the same sharp features, even if Declan’s are sanded at the edges.</p><p>Ronan’s brows furrow when he catches sight of Adam. He says something to Declan and Declan looks Adam’s way, looks him over, emotions concealed beneath a carefully blank expression. They talk some more, and then Declan heads inside and Ronan heads towards Adam.</p><p>“Did you get my note?” he says.</p><p>“Did you really expect me to wait around for you all night?”</p><p>“Fuck, Parrish. What crawled up your ass and died?”</p><p>Adam considers responding and then stops himself. He’s not mad at Ronan; he’s mad at this whole situation, and Ronan is just unfortunate enough to be a part of it.</p><p>Some of the tension drops from his shoulders. He kicks at a clump of grass and says, “I don’t know where we go from here.”</p><p>Ronan says, “There’s a Trader Joe’s around the corner.”</p><p>It’s so unexpected, a total non sequitur. But maybe that’s what they need.</p><p>“Why not?” Adam says, and then he remembers: “By the way, you should probably ignore your voicemails.”</p><p>As they set off towards the store, Adam considers Ronan’s profile in the fading light. There’s something different about him, a sudden ease to his steps, suggesting this day’s treated him far kinder than it’s treated Adam. He can’t be jealous, though; it’s a good thing Ronan’s not miserable. Ronan deserves to not be miserable.</p><p>“So that’s Declan, then?” Adam asks, when they’re out of sight of the hotel. “The brother you don’t like?”</p><p>Ronan grimaces. “Sometimes he’s not the worst.”</p><p>“Careful, Lynch. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking you have a heart in there.”</p><p>“He’s trying,” Ronan says, side-stepping a telephone pole. “Figured I should too.”</p><p>Huh.</p><p>He’d expected Ronan to reappear with stories of another fight, part two of whatever had prompted those awful voicemails during the first loops, but this sudden turn-around is unanticipated. It broadcasts what should’ve been obvious to Adam all along: Ronan loves his family. Whatever pain drives him to avoid talking about them is a different breed from Adam’s own.</p><p>It makes perfect sense, then, why Ronan chose to bail on Adam tonight, and how can Adam hold it against him? Ronan has people that love and care for him. He has people whose lives will be torn apart by his death, who deserve some peace and closure, a last ditch opportunity to make things right.</p><p>Maybe that’s what Adam’s shadow self is haunting him for, to remind him he has people too, although he can’t imagine his death inspiring much in the way of tears. What will his mother feel when she hears the news? Pity? Shame? Will she grieve for him at all, lament all his lost potential? Or will she simply sigh over what it means for the family? Money lost, one less pair of hands to chip in. Even in death, Adam still disappoints.</p><p>Trader Joe’s looms up ahead, a neon-lit beacon in the gloom. Ronan grabs a shopping cart and spins it a 360 turn on its wheels. Adam would ask what exactly Ronan plans on buying that won’t fit into a basket, but he knows Ronan will take that as a dare.</p><p>On second thought, maybe that’s all the more reason to say it.</p><p><em>Be sensible</em>, he chides himself, although that’s proving easier said than done while his fate’s tied to a chaos agent. The more time he spends around Ronan, the more he can feel Ronan’s recklessness rubbing off on him.</p><p>The store’s dead inside, no one but stray students and haggard employees haunting the aisles. Ronan gives the shopping cart a flimsy push and then jumps on its back wheels. Adam rolls his eyes and walks a careful distance behind them. He can already see this ending in bruises.</p><p>“So astrophysics, huh?” Ronan says when Adam catches up to where the shopping cart’s stalled.</p><p>“Did Gansey tell you that?”</p><p>“What do you think? He only pisses himself with glee any time he gets the chance to sing your praises.”</p><p>“Yeah, right.”</p><p>“What, you think I’m exaggerating?”</p><p>“I know you’re exaggerating.”</p><p>Ronan makes a face. “You clearly don’t know Gansey, then.”</p><p>That stings, more so because Ronan doesn’t seem to have intended it. Like Adam didn’t already know he’s a walking minefield of sore spots.</p><p>“I don’t know if I’ll stick with it,” he says, following Ronan as he bypasses the fruit and veg aisle. “Astrophysics, that is. I was supposed to go with biochemistry.”</p><p>“Supposed to?”</p><p>“I had a plan.”</p><p>Ronan scoffs. “God forbid you ever veer off the plan. What’s the issue, scared your <em>best years</em> won’t be miserable enough for you?”</p><p>Adam freezes mid-step. It’s possible that Ronan knows him a lot better than Adam’s ready to admit.</p><p>The middle of the Trader Joe’s freezer aisle isn’t the place to be over-analyzing this, so he forces himself to store those thoughts away and keep moving. What are they doing in the freezer aisle in the first place?</p><p>He looks over at Ronan’s shopping cart, where a random assortment of junk food and two tubs of Cookie Dough ice cream are nestled inside. A rush of warmth shoots through his veins.</p><p>Ronan sets a pack of mint cones in the cart and says, “Gansey thinks I’m out raiding the liquor store. He’ll need <em>something </em>to cheer him up.”</p><p>Right. Gansey. Gansey distraught, crying over the deaths of his friends. Gansey stowing away in Ronan’s room while the party drones on, only daring to show his misery in private. Adam looks at those mint cones and feels a fierce stab of guilt. They owe him a lot more than that.</p><p>“We should head back soon,” he says, but Ronan scrunches his face up.</p><p>“Fuck that. He’s only gonna moan about us ditching him in the first place.”</p><p>“He’s miserable. You didn’t see him.”</p><p>“I see him every day.”</p><p>“Lynch–”</p><p>“What do you think happens if we go back there tonight?”</p><p>Adam hadn’t considered that. He doesn’t want to consider that.</p><p>“That’s not something we get to control,” he says, but Ronan only scoffs and jumps back on the wheels of the cart.</p><p>“Sure it is.” The cart whooshes along before coming to a standstill halfway down the aisle. “We control it by removing ourselves from the circle.”</p><p>“What good would that do?”</p><p>“What good? He was <em>there</em>, Parrish. He saw us…” Ronan shakes his head, like he can rid himself of dark thoughts the way a dog shakes the rain off its skin. “I’m not putting him in that position again.”</p><p>“That wasn’t him, though,” Adam says faintly. “The real Gansey’s back at the apartment.”</p><p>“There is no real Gansey. They’re all real Ganseys.”</p><p>“No they’re not. The day resets–”</p><p>“Yeah, for <em>us</em>. Who’s to say it resets for the rest of them?”</p><p>God. God, no, that can’t be true. Adam really can’t live with that being true.</p><p>“Your pre-death self spent the day packing bags at Home Depot,” Ronan says, “and I <em>talked </em>to him. Think about it. Different timelines, right? We’re the only ones that don’t fit here.”</p><p>That’s not possible, but neither is anything about this situation. It’s no less possible than anything else they’ve came up with.</p><p>He tells himself it’s not bad news. It’s just another potential piece of the puzzle, one that promises new theories and possibilities, that’ll bring them right to the solution if Adam only reaches out and grasps.</p><p>But he can’t do that. His mind loops back to the elevator, all those nameless strangers dying alongside them. To the convenience store, an innocent man pleading for his life, two daughters left behind. To Gansey and Blue and Henry in the car. Blood on Blue’s face, Gansey’s grief-stricken cries, all of it <em>real</em>–</p><p>“Don’t give out on me, Parrish.”</p><p>And Henry, what about Henry? What about everything that comes after? All that work Gansey put into trying to make everyone happy, and <em>this </em>is what he gets in return? Adam feels sick with himself. Of course befriending him could only end in misery for Gansey, isn’t that the Parrish way? Happiness is finite, and Adam’s always been a black hole.</p><p>He can feel his mind slipping into that frightening state from before, his breaths steadily rising, and he works to center himself. He clenches his hand and digs the nails into the meat of his palm, the subtle pain a welcome distraction. It gets him through the rest of the aisles and through the checkouts and through the doors of Trader Joe’s, where Ronan coaxes him the rest of the way out of his head with a well-timed insult and an order to get into the shopping cart.</p><p>“What?” He knows he didn’t mishear Ronan, but he’s having a hard time calculating how they got from A to Z.</p><p>Ronan’s answering grin is devious, pure mischief.</p><p>“Oh, no. No way.”</p><p>“You’re gonna think yourself into cardiac arrest if you’re not careful,” Ronan says. “Get in there.”</p><p>“Is this your idea of therapy?”</p><p>Ronan grins even wider and points at the cart. Adam sighs, but he still climbs in. Ronan may be reckless but apparently Adam’s an enabler, and that might be even worse.</p><p>“If you push me out into open traffic…”</p><p>“Relax. It’s an empty parking lot.”</p><p>“Empty for now.”</p><p>“Here, I’ll give you a countdown,” Ronan says, and Adam wraps his arms around his knees. “Three…Two…”</p><p>Ronan takes off with a sprint.</p><p>“Bastard!” Adam shouts. The air whips his face as the cart picks up speed, sucking the breath out his lungs. Ronan shoves with all his might, muscles bunched, and then jumps onto the back of the cart with a gleeful shout, obscene and brilliant. They go soaring out into the empty lot, front wheels spinning, Adam’s body jerking from side to side, and Adam lets out a war cry of his own. He catches Ronan’s eye and laughs, the sound bursting out of him, taking him by surprise.</p><p>Ronan’s eyes brighten and Adam’s caught in the sight, heart beating rapid fire in his chest–</p><p>And then Ronan looks up and swears.</p><p>The cart crashes into a lighting pole at an angle and goes spinning out of control. Adam curls in on himself and covers his face with his hands, waiting with baited breath as they lose momentum and tip sideways. Both him and Ronan and the cart go skidding to the ground. Asphalt scrapes against Adam’s skin and he gasps, pained yet giddy.</p><p>“God,” he says, breathless. “God, that hurts. You fucker.”</p><p>“Worth it,” Ronan says. He’s lying on his back a few feet away, the contents of his shopping bag scattered beside him. When he looks Adam’s way he’s smiling brighter than Adam’s ever seen him, and it sends Adam’s stomach into a fluttering riot. He thinks, <em>This is how Ronan looks when he’s happy</em>, and then realizes with shocking clarity,<em> And I want to keep making him happy.</em></p><p>“I think the cones are destroyed,” Ronan says. Adam looks at the bashed box lying in between them, remembers that broken-up look Gansey gave him just before he left the party, and grimaces. All the dark thoughts from before are buzzing on the edges of his mind, a snarling mass held back by Ronan’s fragile distraction barriers. He feels desperate, all of a sudden, not to let them through.</p><p>“What about the ice cream?”</p><p>Ronan roams around, locating the two tubs and the rest of his junk food haul. “Looks fine to me.”</p><p>“Let’s go, then.” Adam climbs to his feet and dusts off his jeans.</p><p>“I’m not going anywhere near that party, man.”</p><p>“Screw the party,” he says. “I know a place.”</p><p>-</p><p>The park is nothing special, not like any of the parks he remembers from back home. Those ones, stretching right along the edges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, were a real sight to behold, all Appalachian oak and wildlife running free. This, here, is a play exhibit in comparison, with thin copses of trees rather than whole forests’ worth. But it’s free, quiet, and within walking distance. A good spot for mid-evening runs. In the right lighting, it’s almost scenic.</p><p>They find a spot on the grass overlooking the pond and Ronan immediately starts divvying up the shopping bag’s contents. Adam, starved in more ways than one, can’t find it in himself to complain about not paying his due. He scarves down an Italian-style wrap and follows it up with half a dozen chocolate s’mores.</p><p>“Here.” Ronan shoves one of the ice cream tubs towards him.</p><p>“What am I meant to do with this?”</p><p>“Wear it on your face. The fuck do you think?”</p><p>“I’m thinking eating ice cream usually requires a spoon.”</p><p>“You’re a Harvard nerd. Get creative.”</p><p>Adam raises a brow at that. He watches, contemplative, as Ronan peels back the tab on his and runs his fingers around the edge of the tub. He licks off the collected mouthful when he’s done.</p><p>“Gross.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, are you too much of a snob to eat with your hands?”</p><p>“That’s me,” Adam says dryly. “The trailer trash snob.” He channels the full weight of his derision into his trademark stare. It’s a look that flusters most people, or at least gets them to reconsider whatever stupidity they’re currently engaging in, but Ronan Lynch isn’t most people. He grins wolfishly, <em>challenge accepted, </em>and the effect it has on Adam’s pulse is frightening. Adam’s smarter than this, he’s sensible, he knows better than to throw himself into the path of a tornado. There are too many ways this could go wrong, too many ways they could hurt each other. One smile from Ronan shouldn’t have the power to undo him.</p><p>It does, though; he’s weak; every new fact he learns about Ronan pokes another hole in his carefully-wrought defences. He can protect himself against cruelty, but he’s never needed to protect himself against kindness.</p><p>“This is how everyone used to eat,” Ronan says, his voice bringing Adam back to the present. “You think they had silverware in the Bronze Age?”</p><p>“I’d assume they used bronze.”</p><p>“Whatever, smartass. That’s what hands are meant for, you know, to forage and shit.”</p><p>“Profound,” Adam says dryly. “I’ll have to quote you in my next anthropology paper.”</p><p>“<em>Vitiis nemo sine nascitur</em>.”</p><p>Adam takes a minute to think it through, then laughs and rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Horace, right?”</p><p>Ronan nods. He looks immensely pleased and Adam’s stomach swoops again, from pride or perhaps just the exhilaration of sitting so close.</p><p>Ronan digs into the ice cream then with his whole hand and, credit where it’s due, doesn’t so much as wince at the coldness. It’s an absurd display, but Adam appreciates his commitment to absurdity. He appreciates the brightness in Ronan’s eyes even more.</p><p>“Ha! Check it out.” Ronan presents his palm to Adam, where a cookie dough chunk lays nestled amongst the rapidly melting ice cream.</p><p>“Congrats,” Adam says. “That’s real hunter gatherer material. You’re doing our ancestors proud.”</p><p>“I’d like to see you do better.”</p><p>“Nice try but I am<em> not</em> falling for that again.”</p><p>“Don’t play the armchair critic, then.”</p><p>“It’s called common sense,” Adam says. “I’m not spending the night with sticky fingers just to prove a point.”</p><p>Ronan’s eyes light up and Adam says, “Don’t you dare, it’s low-hanging fruit,” before he can make whatever lame innuendo he’s got queued up.</p><p>Ronan attempts to suck up the ice cream from his cupped palms and then gives up halfway through and wipes his hands on the grass. He leans over and snatches the chocolate s’mores box from Adam’s lap.</p><p>“We used to bring these with us all the time on car trips,” he says, “till one time Gansey got so sick with them he barfed all over Sargent’s lap.”</p><p>“God.”</p><p>“And then he got so worried she was never gonna talk to him again he sent her an apology journal.”</p><p>“When you say apology journal…”</p><p>“I mean an actual journal. With, like, doodles and shit. Poems.”</p><p>“<em>God</em>.”</p><p>“He taped sunflower seeds to one of the pages and wrote ‘you’re the nutrients I require to thrive.’”</p><p>Adam laughs so hard he’s worried <em>he </em>might be sick, although that might not be a bad thing, if Gansey’s efforts are anything to go off of. He wonders if Blue still has the journal, if there’s any way he can convince her to show it to him.</p><p>He’d have to face her for that, though. They’d have to return.</p><p>And then, like a bad omen declaring the end of a nice dream, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He feels every trace of good humour wipe itself from his face and curses himself for being so sensitive, so wretched. They shouldn’t have this much power over him when he’s 500 miles away.</p><p>He takes the phone out and lays it on the grass, leaves it to vibrate. Ronan watches his movements with a considering glance.</p><p>“Are you ever gonna tell that asshole to stop harassing you?” he asks.</p><p>“They’re not harassing me.”</p><p>“So your face just looks like that normally, huh?”</p><p>He wants to ask what his face looks like, but on second thought, he can already imagine. It’s not an image he wants to dwell on.</p><p>The phone stops ringing. He keeps his eyes fixed on it, counting seconds.</p><p>“It’s my mom,” he says when the silence becomes strained. Ronan just looks at him as if to say <em>and, so? </em>“I’d like to see you call your mom an asshole to her face.”</p><p>“It’s not to her face, it’s through the phone,” Ronan says. “And my mom’s dead.”</p><p><em>Oh</em>. Adam supposes, in retrospect, that’s not a surprise. Of course Ronan’s secrets are painful and tragic. Of course something awful lay behind his refusal to speak of his family, his sharp edges, his reluctant move from home.</p><p>He wishes he were a warmer breed like Gansey, if only so he could find the right thing to say right now. He can’t say he understands, because he doesn’t.</p><p>“Is that why you moved here?” he asks eventually. Better to be direct than pitying; Adam wouldn’t want that, and he knows Ronan won’t either.</p><p>“What?” Ronan blinks like he’s been caught off-guard. “Oh. No. That was… My brother sold the house.”</p><p>“That’s why you were fighting?”</p><p>He nods. “Dad left it to him in the will.”</p><p>Not just his mom, then. Both Ronan’s parents are dead.</p><p>Adam feels the weight of that admission hanging between them. He sees the shadow of grief behind Ronan’s eyes, and his understanding of Ronan realigns once again in the face of these startling facts.</p><p>This isn’t something he likes to talk about, but he’s telling Adam now. He’s trusting Adam and that means something. Adam can’t mess this up.</p><p>“Ronan, I–”</p><p>“What’s the deal with that, then?” Ronan jerks his head at the phone, effectively shutting the conversation down. Adam clenches his fist around it, longing to smash it up along with everything it signifies.</p><p>“We’re not close,” he says. “Lots of people aren’t close with their parents. Like Gansey.”</p><p>He can hear how defensive he sounds and it’s humiliating. Anyone would be able to see through him.</p><p>“That’s because Gansey’s parents are Republican fucks.”</p><p>“Mine are, too.” Probably. In spirit, at least. He doesn’t think they’ve ever cared enough to go out and vote.</p><p>He can feel Ronan watching him, Ronan considering him. A secret for a secret, that’s how this ought to work. Ronan’s given up a piece of himself, left himself vulnerable in Adam’s hands, and now it’s Adam’s turn to rebalance the scales. A fair trade-off. He’s already told him about the kid, and this is just an extension of that, a part two.</p><p>Adam swallows back the lump in his throat. Not tonight.</p><p>Ronan turns away from him and looks out towards the lake. He pulls something out of his pocket and flips it over in his palm. A silver key, moonlight glinting off its edges. If Adam pretends hard enough, he can convince himself it’ll take them to another world, one where everything is back in its right place.</p><p>“They’re moving in at the end of March,” Ronan says. “The new owners. Declan reckons I should head down there, collect my shit or whatever.”</p><p>“That’s what the key’s for?”</p><p>“That’s what the key’s for.”</p><p>It doesn’t take Adam long to see where this is going. “When you say head down there…?”</p><p>“Tomorrow.”</p><p>Adam sighs. “It’s, what, eight hours on the road?”</p><p>“Less if I’m driving.”</p><p>“More if you get killed.”</p><p>“I know it’s a risk,” he says, “but I’ve got a feeling about it. I think it’s what I’m supposed to do.”</p><p>There’s a strength behind his words, a resolution. Ronan has thought this through, perhaps spent the whole night thinking it through, and nothing short of dying on the road is going to sway him off this course.</p><p>Adam marvels at the extent to which their roles have switched. Ronan’s the one with the ideas now, the sense of purpose. Adam feels like he’s drifting in the currents, barely keeping his head afloat.</p><p>“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore,” he admits.</p><p>“You could come with me.”</p><p>Go with Ronan, leave the party and their friends again. It feels simultaneously wrong and not wrong, desire and obligation warring against one another. He can’t hide from Gansey forever but this feels important, significant. Ronan’s trusting him with this, asking this of him, and Adam can’t bear to mess this up.</p><p>In the end it’s not a decision at all – he follows his gut.</p><p>“Okay,” Adam says. “I’ll come with you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>TW for panic attacks (and the usual allusions to child abuse + self-loathing thoughts that come with it).</p><p>Thanks so much again to everyone who's been reading. I'm still in lockdown so when I say your comments are the highlight of my week I really mean it, haha. Would love to hear what you guys think about this one and if there's anything you're hoping to see in the next few chapters!! My tumblr is <a href="http://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com">here</a> if you wanna say hi! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, man. We could’ve been hanging out all this time!”</p><p>“Hey, I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”</p><p>“After<em> three months</em>.” Noah slouches down in the seat across from Ronan and immediately starts fiddling with the menu stand. They’re at some vegan cafe for hipster douchebags, the kind of place Ronan normally wouldn’t be caught dead at. He’d given Noah free reign to choose their meet-up location, had figured it was only fair, although he might have reconsidered if he’d known this would be the end result. He’s already counted three goateed Hawaiian shirt-clad fuckers, and he’s only been sitting here five minutes. “How many times have I called you in the last three months? You gotta start answering the phone!”</p><p>“Shit, Czerny, I get it. I’m an asshole,” Ronan says. “I’m working on it.”</p><p>Noah doesn’t actually look mad, but then again, he’s Noah. He doesn’t have the disposition (or the attention span) to stay mad for more than thirty seconds at a time. It’s part of the reason they’ve always got along so well. He could always count on Noah to look past the mood swings and the inclination towards daytime drinking and encourage him to goof off instead, whether it be building motor ramps to the moon or practising leaping from the warehouse windows onto the trampoline set up outside.</p><p>But then the time came for college admissions, and Noah got accepted into art school, and Ronan was hit by the realization that the thing that had brought them together would now forever be the thing that set them apart.</p><p>“I’m gonna get a coffee,” Noah says. “You want anything?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. He’s not the caffeine type, but he could use the stimulant. He’s got a long drive ahead of him later, after all.</p><p>“Get me what you’re getting.”</p><p>“An iced caffe mocha?”</p><p>“Jesus shitting Christ,” Ronan says. “Make it an Americano.”</p><p>“Boo,” Noah chides as he bounces to his feet. “You gotta live a little, Lynch.”</p><p>“Trying to,” he says dryly, because it’s true.</p><p>He sends a quick text off to Declan while Noah’s gone, confirming what time he’ll be home at. Having a heart-to-heart with his brother for the second day in a row isn’t his idea of fun, but it’s a necessity if he wants the key again. Probably a necessity either way.</p><p>“Here.” Noah hands him his drink when he gets back to the table. “So what gives, then, huh? I didn’t think Cambridge was your style. Oh! The renovation project! What happened with that?”</p><p>It’s so much at once, so much Ronan’s avoided talking about, but he’s done living in denial. This is how it is, and it’s well past time to deal with it.</p><p>“We’re selling the Barns,” he says, and Noah’s eyes widen.</p><p>“What the hell? But you love the Barns!”</p><p>“Had to. The upkeep was too much.”</p><p>Not the whole truth but not quite a lie, either. Ronan’s mastered straddling the line between.</p><p>“Well fuck, man. That sucks. That really sucks. You had so many cool ideas!”</p><p>Ronan nods along, seeing no point in correcting Noah’s idealistic vision of him. Some time last year, during one of his few visits up north, he’d talked to Noah about doing the Barns up. They’d bounced ideas back and forth about converting one of the bedrooms into a studio, really making a go of it. Thing is, it’d been just that: talk. A way to ward off concern from his friends, to convince both them and himself that he wasn’t just stewing in his own misery, that he had <em>plans</em>, see, just like them. He was more than a high school drop-out, more than a lonely fuck-up, and here was the proof.</p><p> “Is what it is, I guess,” he says. “Anyway, hear me out: we’re having a party at our place tonight for Gansey’s birthday. You remember Gansey, right?”</p><p>“Of course I do. How does anyone forget him?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. He hadn’t actually expected Noah to forget Gansey, but it’s not as if Gansey would exist at the forefront of his mind. They’d got on well enough, sure, but Noah had always been Ronan’s friend the way Henry was Gansey’s. With no shared classes or extracurriculars, they’d rarely had a reason to cross paths.</p><p>“Right. Well, I figured, if you’ve not got anything better planned–”</p><p>“Wait, wait, wait. Are you inviting me to a party?”</p><p>“It’s Gansey’s party.”</p><p>“It’s still a party. Since when do you do parties?”</p><p>“I don’t.” He takes a sip of his drink. Noah raises an eyebrow. “I’m not actually gonna be there tonight. I’ve got some shit I gotta sort. But look, there’s some people there I think you’d like, and you know Gansey will be happy to see you. Just give it a thought, all right?”</p><p> Noah stares at him for so long that Ronan starts to wonder if there’s a coffee moustache on his face. Then his face breaks into a sunny grin, one that the situation hardly merits but that Ronan’s not going to reject.</p><p>“Check you out, Good Samaritan. I never thought the day would come.”</p><p>“Again: it’s a party,” Ronan says. “You might wanna lower your expectations before you go thanking me.”</p><p>“That’s more like it!” Noah takes a sip of his iced cocoa whatever the fuck and spills half of it down his shirt. “Goddamn!”</p><p>“That’s God spiting you for buying those sugary abominations in the first place,” Ronan says, and Noah grins even wider.</p><p>“Believe it or not, I’ve actually missed having your grumpy ass around,” he says as he dabs his shirt with the napkin.</p><p>Ronan tries not to react but he can feel his facial muscles spasming into the shape of a grimace. If Noah knew this was Ronan’s twelfth iteration of this day, he might not be so forgiving. He might not have showed up here at all. It’s a miracle Ronan has any friendships left to salvage.</p><p>He meant what he said, though: he’s working on it.</p><p>-</p><p>Party invite for Noah: check. House key from Declan: check. Catnap before Gansey and Blue get back: check.</p><p>Avoidance of all spirits and hard liquor: check, check, check.</p><p>There’s only one step left, and it’s waiting for him in Gansey’s room. Ronan gently nudges the door open while Gansey and Blue are distracted with one another. Adam’s splayed out comatose on the bed like always, breathing so softly it’s barely apparent he’s breathing at all. Ronan hates this part, waking him up. It feels almost cruel to disrupt him when the bags under his eyes are so prominent, when it’s profoundly obvious that sleep and Adam Parrish are distant acquaintances at best.</p><p>It’s Adam’s choice, though, and Ronan respects that. He nudges Adam’s shoulder and urges him to wake.</p><p>Adam comes to and immediately falls into a coughing fit, hands reaching up to wrap round his throat. Understandable; he <em>did</em> just choke to death. Choked to death on a chicken wing, to be exact. Ronan, in his rush to help him, had stepped right into an open stank.</p><p>Could’ve been worse. He’d barely felt it this time.</p><p>“Shit,” Adam gasps, voice hoarse. Ronan passes over the glass of water he’d filled up in preparation for this exact outcome, and Adam downs it all in one go. “Thanks. God. That was sudden. I thought we’d make it till morning.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t have made a difference. We’d be dead either way,” Ronan says, although he’s a little disconcerted too. He figured they’d cracked the code to surviving past midnight, but last night prove him wrong. Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen again tonight, when he really needs time on his side?</p><p>“You’re saying that, but you’re not the one that has to deal with a newfound aversion to chicken,” Adam says, climbing to his feet. He stretches and Ronan keeps himself from staring at the sliver of skin on display, although keeping his eyes on Adam’s face is just as dangerous. He’s all sharp, delicate lines in the dim glow of the bedroom lamp, strikingly ethereal. “Are we still doing this, then?”</p><p>No need to specify what <em>this</em> is. Ronan’s been readying himself for it all day.</p><p>“I told you already, you don’t need to come with.”</p><p>“And I already told you I would.”</p><p>“I’m just saying–”</p><p>“Don’t just say.” Adam stares Ronan down with that shrewd glint in his eyes. It’d be easy to read such a look as defiant, <em>I’m not backing down</em>, but Ronan’s grown familiar with all of Adam’s hidden contradictory edges. Beneath that steady intractability lies a wariness, too. This is Adam in defence mode, shield raised against potential rejection. “If you don’t want me there, say that. But don’t make excuses.”</p><p>As if Ronan would deny himself eight hours with Adam on the road. As if he’d ever take for granted the one gift this nightmare has bestowed upon him.</p><p>He understands, though, why Adam has to make sure. This cliff’s edge they’re dangling on is fragile, precarious. One wrong move and it’s a steep drop to the bottom.</p><p>“Don’t be stupid, Parrish,” he says, and revels in the way Adam’s shoulders seem to relax. “I asked you, didn’t I?”</p><p>-</p><p>Eight hours on the road, in the dark, through the night.</p><p>Ronan’s made this drive enough times before. He knows this drive. It really shouldn’t be that difficult not to fuck it up.</p><p>He looks over at Adam, who’s currently trying his hardest to stifle a yawn. Ronan considers his options here, the best way to approach the situation, then turns to him and says, “You know how to drive stick?”</p><p>Adam clicks on fast. He grins. “Oh, so I’m allowed to drive your car now?”</p><p>“Consider it a one-time-only deal,” Ronan says. “We’ll get to New Jersey and switch.”</p><p>“Sounds fair.”</p><p>“I’ll drive first, you take a nap.” Adam opens his mouth to protest, but Ronan cuts him off. “I’m not getting into a twenty-car pile-up just cause your stubborn ass fell asleep at the wheel.”</p><p>Adam looks like he still wants to argue, but in the end he sighs and says, “Fine.”</p><p>Doing favours for Adam always involves some level of subterfuge, but Ronan’s getting used to it. The trick is to convince Adam that it’s a fair transaction and not a favour at all.</p><p>Ronan gets them through Massachusetts and Connecticut with ease. He pulls into a gas station in New York, fills the tank, then grabs a cheap-ass coffee and some snacks. They’ll need real food at some point, but this’ll do for now.</p><p>When he gets back to the car Adam’s still zonked out, head pressed against the window, the usual little furrow present between his brows. Ronan’s hand itches to smooth it out.</p><p>His phone, dumped on the dashboard, is lit up, incoming call from – he picks it up – Sargent. The call rings out before he can answer. He thinks about ignoring her but then thinks better of it. He calls back.</p><p>“You better have a good excuse for missing this,” Blue snaps before he’s got the chance to say <em>what’s up</em>. “What are you doing with Adam, anyway? Gansey says the two of you can’t stand each other.”</p><p>“Parrish got sick,” he says. “I gave him a lift home.”</p><p>“That doesn’t explain why you’ve been gone for <em>three whole hours</em>.”</p><p><em>I’m on a cross-state road trip slash suicide mission</em> is clearly not the right answer here, so Ronan settles for, “It’s complicated.”</p><p>“It’s really not. You should be here, Ronan. Gansey doesn’t ask for much.”</p><p>Ronan knows she’s right, but he’s not in the mood for another lecture about his failings as a friend. Isn’t it enough that he knows he’s messed up? Isn’t it enough that he’s trying to fix it? Self-awareness has to count for something, surely. What the fuck else can he do?</p><p>“I’d be there if this shit I’m dealing with wasn’t more important,” he says. “Trust me.”</p><p>There’s a long silence, long enough that Ronan would assume she’s hung up if not for the obnoxious party music in the background. Then Blue says, “Your word’s not worth a whole lot anymore, though, is it?”</p><p>Ronan clenches the phone tight in his fist. He wants to fling it all the way across the gas station and tear out of here no holds barred, but just because he wants it doesn’t mean it’s good for him. Getting angry will only get him and Adam killed.</p><p>“Tell him I’ll make it up to him,” he says.</p><p>“Lynch–”</p><p>“Later, Sarge.”</p><p>He switches the phone on mute, takes a deep breath, and then gets back onto the road. His friends will understand sooner or later. He’s going to fix this, fix everything.</p><p>-</p><p>New Jersey. Ronan pulls over at a rest stop off the NJ Turnpike and grabs them burgers and fries from a 24-hour fast food place. Adam comes to and accepts the food with a grateful smile and not a single protest, although Ronan knows that’s only because they’re operating in a time-line where debts acquired will be wiped by morning.</p><p>“You’re up,” he says once the food’s done. They swap sides, and Ronan watches as Adam settles into the driver’s seat and wraps one of his beautiful hands around the wheel and another around the gear shift. His hand’s so close to Ronan’s own, close enough that Ronan could reach out and touch and set the whole car ablaze if he dared to. Ronan doesn’t.</p><p>They get back on the highway and Adam ramps the speed up, nothing too reckless but not overtly cautious either. He’s comfortable driving, good at it too. It’s a damn shame he doesn’t have a car of his own.</p><p>“Since I’m driving,” Adam starts, “do I get to control the music now?”</p><p>“You’re saying techno doesn’t do it for you?”</p><p>“I’m already deaf in one ear, I don’t need to make it two.”</p><p>Ronan hadn’t known about that. He’s pretty sure not even Gansey knew about that; he would’ve filled Ronan in and warned him not to be insensitive, if he had. Which means it’s not information Adam passes out freely. Which means he’s trusting Ronan, specifically.</p><p>If Adam’s not making it a thing then Ronan’s not going to, either. He unlocks his phone and brings up the music app. “You can choose, but I’m reserving the right to veto anything shitty.”</p><p>“By anything shitty, do you mean anything with words?”</p><p>“So only music with words counts as good music now? You wanna head back in time and tell Tchaikovsky that?”</p><p>“You did not just compare your electronic trash to Tchaikovsky.”</p><p>“So what if I did?”</p><p>“So you admit it’s trash, then?”</p><p>“Objection, your honour. We ask that the Prosecution stays on topic.”</p><p>“We’re on topic,” Adam says. “You’re the one stalling because you can’t make your case.”</p><p>“You mean you’re the one failing to disprove my case.”</p><p>“Name one thing Tchaikovsky and your terrible techno have in common.”</p><p>Ronan thinks it through, then says, “It’s shit that people dance to.”</p><p>Adam laughs that lovely, surprised laugh of his, and Ronan’s heart soars. If he can bring that sound out of Adam, if he can tease out the light behind Adam’s eyes and hold his worries and troubles at bay, then maybe there’s still hope for him. Maybe <em>chronic screw-up </em>isn’t all that Ronan can be.</p><p>“I can’t decide if your commitment to doubling down on nonsense arguments is impressive or evidence of poor social skills,” Adam says when he’s calmed down.</p><p>“You’re the one with poor social skills,” Ronan says. “Here I am graciously offering to let you put your garbage on and all you’ve done is slander me.”</p><p>“Nothing you do is gracious,” Adam says. He drums his hands on the wheel, considering. “How about Elliott Smith?”</p><p>“Depressing fucker. Vetoed.”</p><p>“Fine,” he huffs. “Radiohead, then.”</p><p>“Jesus Mary shitting Christ, Parrish, they’re even worse. Vetoed.”</p><p>“Not always,” he says. “And that’s not a bad thing, anyway. A lot of great art comes out of sadness.”</p><p>Ronan wouldn’t know anything about that – all his sadness has ever done is leave him neutered.</p><p>He finds a Radiohead playlist and puts it on shuffle. Adam smiles and immediately begins humming along off-key. Ronan supposes listening to Gloomy McFuckface is worth it if it makes Adam smile like that, relaxed and easy and free.</p><p>“You can sleep, if you want,” Adam says as one miserable song segues into another. “I’m not going to crash.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t get too cocky if I were you.”</p><p>“I’ve got a good feeling,” he says, and catches Ronan’s eye. Then he turns his full attention back to the road, and Ronan’s left thinking, hell, sleeping might be the best option right now.</p><p>“Don’t get us lost,” he warns, and then, after a second thought, “Or killed.”</p><p>Adam rolls his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”</p><p>Ronan rests his head back against the seat and shuts his eyes. He drifts off to the sound of Adam humming along off-key to some brooding melody about nice dreams.</p><p>-</p><p>When he comes to, they’re in Virginia.</p><p>Ronan blinks. The dashboard clock reads 01:48, those bright neon numbers illuminating the gloom of the car. He yawns and stretches and registers the sights outside, all twisting, narrow roads flanked on both sides by tall oaks. He knows these roads, has travelled down them so many times he could do it in his sleep. They’re the familiar sights of home.</p><p><em>Home</em>.</p><p>He’s missed it ferociously.</p><p>Adam navigates their way down roads and around corners with careful precision, until they’re finally rolling up to those ivy-covered stone pillars that signal the beginning of the property.</p><p>Adam looks at Ronan, a question in his eyes. Ronan nods. They ascend.</p><p>Nothing’s changed. It’s just as magnificent as it was when he lived here: the trees encroaching on the winding gravel driveway like long-limbed sentinels; that third tight turn on the left giving way to lush, open fields that snake out along the horizon further than the eye can see; the white-brick farmhouse gleaming and inviting and poised up ahead, center piece of a modern fairytale. Everything wild and enchanting and haunting and <em>his</em>.</p><p>As a kid Ronan had been fond of fairytales. He’d loved the whimsy of them, the notion that magic was not just the stuff of distant lands but could co-exist alongside the ordinary, too. That’s what life at the Barns <em>was</em>, after all. A magical world within a world, hidden amongst the trees. He could almost believe that his father had pulled it straight out of a dream.</p><p>Life at the Barns did not follow the same dreary patterns as life outside the Barns. They seemed to exist outside of reality altogether, untouched by the mundane day-to-day troubles that appeared to rule the lives of his classmates and their families. At the Barns their every need was met. There was food on the table, brothers to bother, animals to care for and love in his parents’ hearts, both for their children and for each other.</p><p>He’d been seventeen when his perfect world shattered.</p><p>He’d been twenty when Declan showed him how it had never really existed to begin with. Life at the Barns had never been so uncomplicated for the eldest son.</p><p>Adam stops the car outside the farmhouse. He cuts the engine, launching them into silence and darkness. While the path up here is lined with lights, the house itself is pitch-black, empty, untended.</p><p>Ronan watches Adam watch the house until he can’t take it anymore. He clears his throat and says, “What’d you think?”</p><p>“It’s unreal,” he says, the words clearly queued up. “You really grew up here?”</p><p>“Not what you were expecting?”</p><p>“You’re never what I’m expecting.”</p><p>Ronan’s body floods with heat. He can feel himself edging ever closer to that cliff’s edge.</p><p>He climbs out of the car. Adam follows suit, craning his neck to view the barns behind the house. There are dozens of them, all traditional rustic red and varying in size, scattered amid the fields like pin-drops on a map.</p><p>All of the animals are gone. They’ve been gone since his parents died, when it became apparent that no one still breathing on the property could be trusted with the upkeep.</p><p>For years the only residents here were him and his parents’ memories.</p><p>Ronan mounts the porch steps and then turns and leans against one of the wooden pillars. He takes a minute to look his fill, to capture the image of his wild domain spread out before him, this land where he was once king of none. He commits every piece of it to memory. Then, with Adam beside him, he turns around and heads inside.</p><p>He switches on all the lights and the central heating and gets the fire started in the main room. All in all, the place doesn’t look so bad for a house that’s sat abandoned for three months, but Ronan knows that’s Declan’s doing. He’s been splitting his time between here and DC, weekend stints devoted to cleaning and dusting and getting the house into order for a new family. Most of the furniture is the same as before but everything else, the framed photos of christenings and communions and first days at school, his mother’s shelved depression glass collection, his father’s tacky Irish fridge magnets, all of that is gone. Stripped bare. His home, with the Lynch identity painted over.</p><p>Ronan re-enters the living room and finds Adam shadowed in the doorway, shoes still on.</p><p>“You<em> can</em> sit, you know,” Ronan says. “The furniture won’t turn to dust if you touch it.”</p><p>Adam raises an eyebrow at that but sits down regardless. After a moment’s hesitation he takes his shoes off too and sets them down very gently at the side of the sofa.</p><p>“Do you have a plan?” he asks.</p><p>Ronan does not have a plan. He figured the plan would make itself known to him when he got here, pieces shifting into place as his heart restitched itself. Now it’s looking like he’ll have to track them down himself, and he doesn’t know where to start looking.</p><p>It feels right, though. What else could the key be other than a sign from the Big Guy, a clear route forward through this tangled labyrinth? It would explain the time lapse between the beginning of his day and the beginning of Adam’s, why it had to be Ronan that woke up first. All this work for Ariadne’s Thread.</p><p>He says, “I’m going upstairs.”</p><p>The master bedroom – his parents’ – has been redecorated completely, new wallpaper, new furniture, all the old keepsakes removed. Declan’s and Matthew’s bedrooms have been too, but that’s been an ongoing process for years now. Declan cleaned his out himself before he moved away for college, and Matthew took a good chunk of his belongings away when he followed suit. Only Ronan’s room stands as it always has, a representation of his unchanging role in the family. Always the problem child, the last to give up. Declan’s had the good sense not to touch anything, which means Ronan himself will have to come down here again once the loop’s over and deal with it himself.</p><p>He steps inside and then wishes he hadn’t. Looking in at this room feels like poking at a raw wound, the pain sharp and persistent. There’s the bed he’s been sleeping in since he was thirteen and Mom caved into his demands to replace his childhood frame with a double. There’s the bagpipes tucked into the corner, a gift from Dad that he’d never had the knack or the patience for. There’s his battered copy of <em>Metamorphoses</em> tucked away in his bedside drawer, along with wrinkled candy wrappers and faded ticket stubs from the movie theater in town.<em> Rebecca, Carnival of Souls, The Haunting</em>. Classics every first Sunday of the month. Mom always liked a good ghost story.</p><p>There are sketchbooks too, lots of old shit from his charcoal phase, works in progress he’d long forgotten about. He flips through the pages and catches glimpses of half-finished pieces, his mind working overdrive and sifting through hazy memories to fill in the gaps. They’re not all bad, but they’re not great either. Could they be, with enough grit and perseverance?</p><p>He wouldn’t know where to start, though. It’s been too long.</p><p>Ronan sighs and stands up. Whatever he’s supposed to find here, he doesn’t think it’s in this room. He turns to leave, then something else occurs to him. He turns back. Sure enough, it’s gone. It’s the only thing in the room that’s gone.</p><p>Did Declan <em>steal his PS4</em>?</p><p>“That sneaky fucking bastard,” he mutters, and slams the door behind him.</p><p>The only place left to look is the attic where Declan’s stowed away their parents’ shit. He considers getting it over and done with right this second, but then he thinks of that one Christmas years ago, Dad spraining his ankle when he went up for presents and tripped on the ladder. Not a good way to go.</p><p>He heads back down to the first floor and calls out, “Parrish?” from the top of the stairs.</p><p>Seconds later, Adam appears at the bottom. Has he been waiting this whole time for Ronan to give the signal?</p><p>“Did you find what you were looking for?” Adam asks.</p><p><em>I don’t know what I’m looking for</em>, he thinks.</p><p>“Not yet,” he says. “I’m gonna need some help.”</p><p>They make it up to the attic in one piece. Ronan flicks the light on and does a quick survey of the room, but there’s so many boxes to wade through. Where do they start?</p><p>He kicks at the side of one, and whatever’s inside rattles. On second inspection, he realizes Declan’s done all the hard work for him: everything is labelled and organized with careful precision.</p><p>“Kinda chilly up here,” Adam says, crossing his arms over his chest.</p><p>“Floor’s not insulated,” Ronan says, although he doesn’t actually know if that’s true or not. His room felt cold too, but that must’ve been the heating taking its time to kick in. What else would it be?</p><p>Here.” He kicks a box (nothing fragile inside; he’d checked this time) towards Adam and says, “That’ll keep you distracted. We’ve only got fifty of them to wade through.”</p><p>“Box cutter?”</p><p>“I don’t know, Parrish. Can I trust you with sharp objects?”</p><p>“You can trust me not to stab myself, yes.”</p><p>“But I can’t trust you not to stab me is what you’re saying?”</p><p>“Can’t rule it out,” he deadpans. “Demonic possession’s been known to happen in these parts.”</p><p>Ronan grins savagely. He pulls the knife out his back pocket (see, Declan, he’s capable of<em> planning ahead</em>) and swipes through the tape with one quick cut.</p><p>“Be honest,” Adam says. “Did you practice that move in the mirror first?”</p><p>Ronan flips him off.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”</p><p>He brings another box over, this one very helpfully labelled ‘MASTER BEDROOM 5,’ and opens it up while Adam sets about digging inside the first one. He pulls out various objects that catch his eye (the aforementioned fridge magnets, a ‘stud muffins’ cookbook that Dad had gifted to Mom one Christmas as a joke, an ice cube tray in the shape of a state map that Mom bought after Matthew failed his geography quiz on them in fourth grade) and holds them up for Ronan’s inspection, but nothing stands out. They’re all remnants of a lost childhood, they all nudge at the ever-present ache in his chest, and if everything hurts the same then does it really hurt at all?</p><p>“You know, I’d be a lot more effective at this if I knew what I was looking for,” Adam says after two boxes that are more of the same.</p><p>“I’ll know it when I see it.”</p><p>“How do you know it exists if you don’t know what it is?”</p><p>“There was a key, Parrish. Why would the universe give me a damn key if there was nothing here to find?”</p><p>Adam’s expression turns pensive. He looks out past all the boxes, at the open crawl space, eerily still. He’d be the ideal candidate to pose for a portrait, capable of keeping a pose long enough that one might wonder if he’d nodded off with his eyes wide open. Ronan wonders if it’s a natural talent or something he’d worked at perfecting for a specific purpose. Sneaking in and out his house the middle of the night, avoiding the wrath of parents, typical teen rebellion shit – that’s what he’d assume if it were anyone else, but those acts seem distinctly un-Adam-like. Something else, then.</p><p>Ronan pushes another opened box towards him. “We’ve not got all night, Parrish.”</p><p>“Technically it’s morning,” he says, and then he looks up. “What if the thing you’re meant to find here isn’t an object?”</p><p>Cold air snakes its way down the back of Ronan’s shirt. He feels its presence behind him like a third body in the room.</p><p>What else could it be? There’s nothing else here.</p><p>Adam looks inside the next box and grins widely enough to shake Ronan out his stupor. He pulls a giant folder out of the box and presents it towards Ronan with the same glee as Chainsaw showing off another of her shiny objects. Ronan takes a closer look and grimaces. Not a folder – a photo album.</p><p>“Fuck no,” he says. “Burn that.”</p><p>“Are there baby pictures in here?”</p><p>He doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to look at it. There’s a reason he left Mom and Dad’s room and all their belongings for Declan to deal with.</p><p>Adam flips through the first few pages, smiling to himself.</p><p>“This one’s Declan, right? With all the hair?”</p><p>“We all had hair, Parrish. I didn’t pop out the womb with a buzz cut.”</p><p>“And the blonde one, is that your little brother? Gansey said you’re a middle child.”</p><p>“Matthew,” he says flatly. “Let me see it.”</p><p>“Wait, is that a baby cow you’re–?”</p><p>“I saidgive me the <em>goddamn book </em>already.”</p><p>Adam’s head snaps up. His eyes are wide, startled. He looks at the page, splayed open for Ronan to see: pictures of him with his brothers posing alongside one of the calves, Declan gap-toothed, Matthew fuzzy-haired and smiling dopily for the camera, Ronan a head taller even at nine years old; him and Declan drenched and sullen after a water fight turned nasty, Dad having turned their own dirty tactics against them; Matthew curled up sleeping against their prize dairy cow Wendy’s back, sunburnt only on the nose; Ronan on the tire swing down at the very bottom of the fields, Mom in the background, the two of them smiling wildly, so real and present and senselessly happy, because how could they <em>know</em>–</p><p>Adam closes the book over. He sets it down alongside all the other junk piled in the space between them. Ronan runs his hand over the front cover, thinks of its sister editions that must still be at the bottom of that box. Everything he lost documented in the pages of three dusty photo albums sealed away in cardboard. How did it all fit? He feels like he could fit planets within all this empty space inside him, the open wound a black hole sucking away at another vital piece of him with each passing day. The loss of it all is far too big to comprehend, too big to explain.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Adam says. “I didn’t think.”</p><p>“Nothing to think about,” he says, and he’s horrified at how strained his voice sounds. “I shouldn’t have snapped.”</p><p>“If you need a minute, I can go back–”</p><p>“Don’t.”</p><p>He doesn’t need a minute. He’s had years, and all this quiet solitude has ever done is turn him stir-crazy. Couldn’t stomach it, belong alone with all his thoughts. Had to block it out with something, whether it be drinking or street racing or picking fights with other assholes, because how else could he survive here in this lonely house, haunted by all that was missing?</p><p>Declan always said living here wasn’t good for Ronan, and maybe he had a point. Ronan can’t imagine now how he ever lasted so long on his own.</p><p>It’s more than just the house, though. Ronan could catch a flight to the west coast tomorrow and he’d be no better off. He carries that empty space with him wherever he goes. He’s haunted too.</p><p>There’s a lump in his throat and a horrible pressure behind his eyes. Everything he’s been numbing himself to is on the verge of overwhelming him. “Can we just sit here for a second and not talk?”</p><p>He doesn’t look up to see Adam’s response, whether he nods or frowns or looks at Ronan like he’s more trouble than this is worth. Ronan keeps his gaze fixed firmly on the photo album, eyes blurring as he thinks of everything he’s lost to this house. Mom, Dad, the animals, his relationships with his brothers, his creative passion, his happiness. The motivation to try for anything more.</p><p>Years of his life lost to this house, and that can’t be undone.</p><p>He’s still got time, though. Enough time to reclaim some of his missing pieces back.</p><p>“I miss them,” he says out loud. <em>I miss who I was when they were still here. </em>“I thought, if I stayed here, if I could keep everything the same…But it’s never gonna be the same.”</p><p>A hand settles on his shoulder, a warm, comforting presence that he longs to lean into. He looks up then, and notices that Adam’s pushed the junk pile aside in order to move closer to him. He is achingly present beside him, the only real thing in this attic of ghosts.</p><p>“<em>O</em><em>mnia mutantur, nihil interit</em>,” he says softly, and Ronan lets out a long, shaky breath and allows the power of those words to undo him. He feels them burrowing beneath his skin and making a home there, much like Adam has himself.</p><p>He wonders if Adam has his own battered copy of <em>Metamorphoses</em> in his own bedside drawer in his own childhood home, with all the same stanzas as Ronan’s underlined. He wonders if the strings tying him and Adam together symbolize something grander than just a shared awful fate. He wonders if it’s possible, after all, that he gets to keep this this once the nightmare ends.</p><p>Adam looks up and meets Ronan’s gaze, and Ronan feels the riot inside him settle.</p><p>“C’mon,” he says, and when he stands up now he no longer feels the cold. He holds his hand out for Adam to take. “Let’s get the fuck down from here.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>omnia mutantur, nihil interit = everything changes, nothing perishes.</p><p>OOF real nervous to post this one. I hope it's okay? </p><p>I'm on tumblr <a href="http://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com">here!</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Nothing at the Barns seems real.</p><p>It’s an isolated kingdom hidden between the trees, cosy and dreamlike, so far removed from everything Adam knows that he can almost believe none of the usual rules apply here at all. They’re in a tiny pocket outside of time, and anything goes.</p><p>He follows Ronan down the ladder and through the dim-lit hallways, climbing down stairs and passing by locked doors whose contents Adam can only guess at. The house is intimidatingly large, a maze he could easily get lost in if Ronan weren’t leading in front. He’s not sure it would be such a bad thing if he <em>were</em> to lose his way; he’s always longed for a home like this, lush and warm and filled with love. The rooms might be bare, all evidence of its former inhabitants removed, but he saw enough of it in the attic. The Lynch family had been happy here, once.</p><p>Adam thinks it must be worse to lose all of this – love, home, belonging – than to never have it at all.</p><p>They find their way back to the living room and Ronan throws himself down on the couch. There’s no mention of what they came here to do, or if he’s found what he was looking for. He stares blankly at the ceiling before sighing and running his hands over his face. Adam silently retreats to the hallway, giving Ronan the time he needs to process.</p><p>There’s a framed painting above the sideboard, some sort of abstract oil thing, a bright splash of colour contrasting with the muted décor. He’s found paintings in every room so far, but he doesn’t know enough about art to tell what any of them mean. Beneath it, stacked across the sideboard, are a set of matryoshka nesting dolls, finely carved and painted in an range of bright hues. There’s a beautiful simplicity to them; they feel almost out of place within this modern farmhouse.</p><p>“It’s by one of my dad’s old clients.” Ronan’s voice is suddenly behind him, catching him off guard. Adam wipes the momentary panic from his face before turning.</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“The painting,” Ronan says. “It was a gift from one of Dad’s clients.”</p><p>“What did your dad do?”</p><p>“Art dealer. He had a gallery in DC.”</p><p>Another piece of Ronan’s story clicks into place. “Is he the one that taught you how to paint?”</p><p>But Ronan shakes his head and says, “He never painted his own shit, he just bought and sold other people’s.”</p><p>“What about the other paintings on the walls? Are any of them yours?”</p><p>“Yeah, right.” Ronan grins, but there’s no warmth to it. “You wouldn’t have to ask if you’d seen what my stuff looks like.”</p><p>“So show me, then.”</p><p>It’s a brazen request. He half expects Ronan to laugh in his face or tell him to go screw himself. For a minute it looks like Ronan’s considering just that, but then a strange look passes over him and his eyes soften.</p><p>“All right,” he says. “Why the fuck not?”</p><p>They go upstairs to one of the bedrooms, the only room Adam’s seen thus far with any character. There’s another painting on the wall, this one a landscape of roving fields, along with various posters of movies Adam’s never seen. Horror movies, by the looks of them. This must be Ronan’s old room.</p><p>Ronan crouches down and pulls a box out from beneath the bed.</p><p>“I left most of my shit here when I moved,” he says. “Declan’s expecting me to tow it all Cambridge. I don’t really care, though. Not like I need it.”</p><p>“Not even the posters?”</p><p>“Especially not the posters. It’d be easier to just buy some more than roll these ones up.”</p><p>He hasn’t, though. It goes without saying that he never wanted to. Adam understands now why his room at Gansey’s apartment seems so bare – part of Ronan never left this house to begin with.</p><p>“Here.” Ronan sets a book down on the bed. “Some old sketches. There’s some paintings in the wardrobe too, if you wanna see them.”</p><p>Adam sits down, picks the book up and carefully flicks through. There are sketches of Declan and a curly-haired boy that must be Matthew and an older couple Adam assumes to be their parents, all rendered heavily in charcoal. There are sketches of barn animals, too. Then there are trees, lots and lots of trees, gloomy and atmospheric, with waterfalls and snaking paths between them. One such drawing stands out in particular – a winding river cutting the forest into two, with a large, gnarled tree forming a bridge between each side. He can’t explain it, but something about it draws him in and refuses to let go. Adam’s sure that if he crossed that bridge, he’d never find his way back home.</p><p>When he looks back up, Ronan’s already looking right at him. There’s a lingering heat behind his eyes that sends a thrill of anticipation all the way down Adam’s spine to the tips of his toes.</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing? </em>
</p><p>“I like this one best,” he says, and breaks eye contact. “Is it based off somewhere?”</p><p>There’s a brief lull – did he catch Ronan off guard? – before Ronan says, “It’s Cabeswater.”</p><p>“Where’s that?”</p><p>“Nowhere. I made it up.” He holds his hand out wordlessly for the book, and after one last look Adam passes it over.</p><p>“You’re really good,” he says, but Ronan just scoffs. He tucks the book back in the box and returns it to its original hiding spot under the bed.</p><p>“Don’t bullshit me, Parrish. It doesn’t suit you.”</p><p>“Hey, if I thought you were shitty, I’d tell you you’re shitty,” he says. “Poor social skills, remember?”</p><p>Ronan smiles for real then. He sits down on the bed beside Adam, enough space between them for it not to feel momentous.</p><p>“My mom was a painter,” he says, trailing his fingers absent-mindedly over the sheet. “She did these fuck-off oil portraits – all these bougie assholes used to commission her to paint their ugly spawn. Anyway, that’s how her and Dad met. He showed up at one of her exhibitions, charmed her ass off, then next thing you know they’re buying a farm in fuck-off nowhere and opening a gallery together.”</p><p>“That’s cute.”</p><p>“Yeah.” He frowns then. “I guess. Dad was never around much when we were kids. Always had business and shit in other cities, other countries. Mom never complained, so I just figured she was happy, you know? I never questioned it.</p><p>“Anyway, she’s the one that taught me how to paint. I used to get so impatient, I’d never stick with anything, but I stuck it out that one time. I wanted to impress them, I think. Wanted to impress Dad mostly.”</p><p>Adam’s mind drifts to his own father, difficult to please and impassive in the face of all Adam’s best efforts. But still he’d persisted, held his glowing report cards out each year for consideration, something in him desperate and hungry for validation –<em> you’re good, you’re enough</em> – until that, too, was knocked out of him.</p><p>Ronan’s family is different, though, so Adam says, “Did it work?”</p><p>Ronan nods. “It’s funny. Declan remembers everything so differently – he says Dad was kind of an asshole. I mean, obviously he was an asshole. He ran the business to the ground, and he had all these enemies, people he’d screwed over, and it got him killed. He had to be an asshole. But he wasn’t like that with me. I just remember how funny he was and, like, how he’d always show up after weeks away with all these cool gifts for us like fucking Santa Claus. And he’d stick all my drawings on the wall in the office, even the real shitty ones, and he never complained about there being too many.” Ronan takes in a deep breath, and all Adam hears in the silence is, <em>I loved him</em>.</p><p>Before Adam can do anything embarrassing like offer up another clumsy attempt at comfort, Ronan climbs to his feet. His eyes are dry but he looks deeply worn out all the same.</p><p>“You can crash in here, if you want,” he says.</p><p>“What about you?”</p><p>“Plenty of other rooms, Parrish.”</p><p>In other words, he doesn’t want to sleep in his old room. Adam can understand that.</p><p>“Declan’s kept the bathroom on the first floor stocked,” he adds. “It’s the second door on the left.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>Ronan says nothing about driving back, so neither does Adam. He doesn’t even know what time it is right now, and he’s not sure he cares. The minute they get back in that car, he’ll have to think about everything he’s been avoiding. About his own ghosts of the past.</p><p>“Hey, Ronan?”</p><p>Ronan turns back around.</p><p>“Thanks,” Adam says. “For showing me all this.”</p><p><em>For bringing me here, for trusting me, for sharing with me the pieces of you no one else gets to see. </em>He can’t bring himself to say all that, but he thinks Ronan hears him anyway. He nods wordlessly, gives Adam one last loaded stare, before turning on his heels and shutting the door behind him.</p><p>Adam sits there for a minute or two, catching his breath, before he remembers the paintings. He opens up the wardrobe and uncovers the canvasses propped up inside. There are six of them in total, all featuring the same otherworldly forest from the sketchbooks, only this time it’s rendered in bright, vivid watercolours. Waterfalls with vibrant blue flowers growing by the riverbed, ponds full of shimmering fish, and then there’s the tree bridge, a luminous walkway into another world.</p><p>There’s so many little details packed onto each canvas, and Adam’s awed at how much precision it must’ve taken. How could he ever have thought that Ronan was nothing more than another rich boy with a bad attitude? He’s so much more than Adam ever could’ve anticipated, as extraordinary as the home he grew up in, full of endless surprises.</p><p>Adam carefully sets the Cabeswater paintings back how he found them, then gets washed up and climbs into bed. He’s tired – always tired – but it takes him a while to get settled. All he can think of is falling asleep at the apartment a few nights ago, with Ronan only a hairsbreadth away. Of Ronan’s lingering looks. Of this simmering thing between them that’s grown too big and too frightening for Adam to control.</p><p><em>You’re smarter than this, </em>he reminds himself, but the sentiment rings hollow. Going it alone in life might keep him protected, but it’s never made him happy.</p><p>-</p><p>There’s another sealed note on the bed when he wakes up, this one written in black marker pen and containing the words, <em>OUT FOR FOOD SEE YOU SOON LOSER.</em></p><p>“Charming,” Adam says out loud, but he feels himself smiling. Maybe it <em>is </em>charming, being thought of like this. Being deemed important enough to warrant these little notes.</p><p>He gets freshened up, showering for what feels like the first time in weeks, then wanders around the house. Most of the doors are still shut, and opening them up to pry inside feels invasive and wrong, so Adam sticks to drifting through the hallways and admiring the other paintings. These other artists are talented, no question, but he reckons Ronan’s work would look a lot better on the walls.</p><p>Adam finds his ways downstairs eventually and switches his phone on. There’s an overwhelming number of missed calls and messages, enough that the phone promptly crashes after a minute on full power. Odd.</p><p>Then the phone reboots and Adam’s curiosity turns to horror. There’s the usual calls from his mother, but the overwhelming majority are from Gansey and from an unlogged number that he assumes must be Blue.</p><p>Ronan said he spoke to her, but he never told Adam <em>what</em> he said.</p><p>It’s already 4:15, which means they’ll both be off their flight and probably eating some ridiculously fancy five-course birthday meal in a D.C. mansion by now. It would be bad manners to call at this time, but his battery won’t last all night. Better to get it over with, propriety be damned.</p><p>Gansey answers on the first ring. “Adam, thank god! Tell me you’re okay.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” he says. “I thought Ronan spoke to you.”</p><p>“Have you heard from Ronan, then? Is he – Wait, are you <em>with </em>him?”</p><p>“Yes? Didn’t he tell Blue?”</p><p>“He told Blue you were sick last night and he dropped you off back home,” Gansey says. “I had Henry call over at the dorms – I would’ve stopped by myself, but you know my flight was today, we didn’t have the time. Then your roommate told Henry you hadn’t been home all night, and I didn’t know what to think. I thought for sure something terrible had happened.”</p><p>He’s stunned that Gansey thought of him at all. That Gansey, despite being hungover and on his way to a reluctant family gathering, still had the inclination to worry about Adam’s ill health, even though Adam missed his party.</p><p>But it’s not really a shock, is it? Gansey worries, and he frets, and he panics over his friends like an unhinged mother hen, because he cares about them. Cares about <em>Adam</em>.</p><p>Adam’s never needed anyone to care; he’s made it twenty years without anyone else fighting in his corner.</p><p>But he could use a friend.</p><p>“We’re both fine,” he says, overcome by a sudden swell of emotion. “Ronan’s brother needed him to clear some stuff out of the house. Ronan really didn’t want to miss the party, but it was an emergency. There’s, uh, viewing appointments. Tomorrow. Declan forgot all about them.”</p><p>“The house? As in Ronan’s old house?”</p><p>“The Barns, right. I said I’d help. Extra set of hands and all.”</p><p>“You drove all the way to Virginia in the middle of the night?”</p><p>On second thought, maybe being vague was the best option here. “It wasn’t that late,” he says. “We left at six.”</p><p>There’s a silence on the other end of the phone, and he can just picture the confusion on Gansey’s face as he works to make sense of everything he’s just heard.</p><p>“We’re almost finished,” he tacks on, as though that might help. “We’ll get back to Cambridge before you do.”</p><p>“Ah,” Gansey says, and then falls silent again. Adam waits it out this time. He drifts over to the kitchen, staring out the window at those stunning barns and fields. Everything is so much more vivid here, even the grass. Even the <em>sky</em>. He’s never seen colour as bright and wonderful as this. The rest of the world seems bleached in comparison.</p><p>Adam feels that familiar ache bone deep inside him and thinks, <em>one day</em>. He can have a place like this in his future if he works hard enough for it. A place that’s a real home and not a temporary rest-stop or something to endure, one that can be spoken of without shame.</p><p>One day, if he makes it out this loop.</p><p>“I think I must’ve missed something,” Gansey says, finally breaking the silence. “I’ve been distracted lately, what with the party and everything, I guess I haven’t been paying close attention. But still, I could’ve sworn you and Ronan weren’t on friendly terms.”</p><p>“I was wrong about him,” Adam says, and it’s a thrill to admit. “So wrong. We worked things out.”</p><p>“I see.” Gansey’s tone says he does not see, at all. “Well, that’s wonderful! I knew you’d warm up to each other eventually. But this is still…How much has Ronan told you about the house?”</p><p>“He said they’re in the middle of selling it.”</p><p>“Ronan said that? And he seemed okay with that? Because–”</p><p>“Don’t you think Ronan’s the one you should be talking to about this?”</p><p>Gansey sighs. “I would if he ever answered the phone.”</p><p>“Try him again later,” Adam says. “He might surprise you.”</p><p>“Apparently he’s been doing that a lot lately,” Gansey says vaguely.</p><p>Adam’s not sure what else there is to say, but he gets the feeling Gansey’s not finished. He must’ve spent the whole flight worrying himself to death. Adam will have to make it up to him in the next loop. He’ll have to spend some time at the party, actually participating in the party, encouraging Ronan to participate too. It’s what they should’ve been doing all along.</p><p>He’s embarrassed it took him weeks of reliving this day on repeat for him to really see things clearly, to understand his importance in Gansey’s life. How awful to think of all those other Adams out there, in infinite different timelines, that don’t recognize how lucky they are.</p><p>“Listen, Adam,” Gansey says, finally finding his words. “I won’t pretend to know what’s going on here, or presume that any of it is my business. But I know Ronan, and I know that the Barns is rather important to him. So if he’s brought you there, well…that can only mean that you’re important too.”</p><p>The power of those words shocks through Adam, leaving him dizzied and electrified.</p><p>“That’s not–” He stops. “I’m just–” But he can’t lie. If he downplays this then someone out there might hear him and believe it, and the spell might break.</p><p>“If I’ve got it all wrong, then–”</p><p>“You haven’t got it wrong,” he says, vulnerability only possible in this magical house where the usual rules don’t apply, with Gansey miles away out of sight.. “It’s just…It doesn’t come easy to me, letting people in. I guess you knew that already.”</p><p>“I’ve noticed.” Gansey’s tone is so much kinder than Adam feels he deserves. “I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, though. It looks like you’re trying.”</p><p>“I don’t know if it’s enough.”</p><p>“For what it’s worth, I think you being your honest self is more than enough.”</p><p><em>That’s the problem</em>, Adam thinks, but he doesn’t dream of saying that. Gansey wouldn’t understand, anyway, because Adam has never allowed him to. He’s never allowed anyone to know what it is to be Adam, forever trying, born not enough.</p><p>Ronan knows, though, at least on some level. He understood the truth at Adam’s core without Adam ever putting it into words.</p><p>“Thanks,” he tells Gansey. “I think that’s what I needed to hear.”</p><p>“Listen, if you need me to swing by early…” The message is clear: this is Gansey offering him an out, his attempt to protect them both, to tidy things out before he gets hit by shrapnel.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Adam says. He watches the sun set in that vivid picture-book sky, something inside him settling along with it. “I think we’re good here.”</p><p>“If you’re sure.”</p><p>“I’m sure.” And then it occurs to him – this could be the last time this Gansey ever speaks to him. This Gansey might have to keep living in a world without two of his closest friends. Ronan could be wrong – maybe there are no parallel worlds – but Adam can’t take that risk. He can’t let Gansey go without giving him something first.</p><p>“I’m glad I stopped that day, you know,” he says, “on the road. I could’ve kept cycling right by the Pig and I never would’ve met you, can you imagine that?”</p><p>There’s another silence on the phone, but Adam’s not concerned by it this time. It’s good to know he can surprise people, too.</p><p>“I like to think we would’ve met eventually,” Gansey says, all earnest optimism. “Fate has a way of figuring these things out.”</p><p>“You’re a good friend, Gansey. You deserve good things.”</p><p>Gansey breathes in sharply. He sounds shakier than usual when he says, “Christ. Parrish. What’s got into you?”</p><p>Adam smiles faintly. “It’s been a strange few days.”</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan gets back a little while later with pizzas from “the best diner joint in Singer’s Falls” and some soda to wash it down, claims it’s the next best thing after his own cooking.</p><p>“Hey, I resent that tone of yours,” he says when Adam questions the validity of such a statement. He sets the boxes down on the rug by the fireplace, and they both sit. “I’m a brilliant cook. Gourmet fucking chef material. I could host the shit out of any dinner party.”</p><p>“You realize part of being a good party host involves talking to and entertaining the other people in the room?”</p><p>“Are you saying I’m not entertaining?”</p><p>“I’m saying I’d love to be a fly on the wall while you casually intimidate your guests, that’s all.”</p><p>Ronan points. The threatening effect’s lessened by the fact that he’s mid-chew and has pizza sauce at the edge of his mouth.</p><p>They take their time dusting off the food and describing their ideal dinner parties (“I don’t want anyone talking at my table unless it’s to shit-talk the other guests.” “Are we playing ‘worst dinner experience wins?’ “You can’t say shit, you just told me you can’t even cook.” “Yeah, but at least my poisoned guests won’t have to worry about getting wine bottles smashed over their heads.”) and at no point does either of them bring up the elephant in the room, the fact that they could’ve easily gotten food while on the road.</p><p>Adam lies down on the rug afterwards, eyes closed, face to the fire, and thinks about how desperately he never wants to leave. There’s no putting it off for much longer – they’ve already extended their welcome by a whole day – but it’s so easy to pretend the usual rules don’t apply here. They’re in the middle of a dreamy interlude, and so long as they keep up the illusion Death will never get through the door.</p><p>He’s aware of Ronan returning to the room and standing somewhere in his peripheral, but he doesn’t look up. Plausible deniability; he can’t respond to what he can’t see.</p><p>“You know,” Ronan says, tone so casual it’s apparent this is anything <em>but </em>casual, “it’s funny. I don’t think I’ve ever thought so hard about the future till I got stuck reliving the fucking present.”</p><p>“We must’ve traded places, then,” Adam says. “All this loop’s done is made me realize the future doesn’t matter when everything else sucks.”</p><p>Soft footsteps pad across the floorboards, and Adam feels it when Ronan sits down beside him on his right side. His hearing side. Adam never told him which ear he was deaf in. There’s no reason for this to be anything but a coincidence, except that it’s Ronan, and he’s always paying attention.</p><p>Adam sits up. Looks up. They’re facing each other now, mirror images with knees so close they’re almost touching. If he smiled, would it reflect on Ronan’s face too?</p><p>“I never cared about any of it,” Ronan says, “before this. Never had any plans. Kinda figured I wouldn’t be here much longer, anyway.”</p><p>The bluntness of that admission rips Adam in two. He finds Ronan’s hand on the rug and tangles his pinkie with Ronan’s thumb.</p><p>“I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>“I should hope so, Parrish. You’d be pretty damn screwed without me.”</p><p>He smiles and Ronan does too, brief yet achingly tender.</p><p>“I don’t wanna live like that anymore,” he adds. “I mean, <em>fuck</em>. Dying sucks ass.”</p><p>“Kinda puts things into perspective when you’re forced to go through it a dozen times over.”</p><p>“No shit.”</p><p>Ronan’s hand is warm at his side, a solid, stabilizing presence. It makes it all the easier for Adam to turn his face back to the fireplace and say, “I think I was waiting for the future before I actually started living.”</p><p>“What’s that mean?”</p><p>“Well, I just figured by the time I’d finished college, and been to grad school, and had some great job and no shortage of money and a fast car and a downtown condo with shiny marble counters, something to really show for myself, then I’d have finally earned it, you know?”</p><p>“Earned what, the right to be a person?”</p><p>When Ronan phrases it like that it sounds even worse than he’d realized. It sounds grim, because it <em>is</em> grim. He’s been moving through the world like some kind of ghost, lonesome and wanting, closed off to touch.</p><p>“I know how it sounds,” he says.</p><p>“Then why put yourself through it?”</p><p>Because it’s smarter, safer, easier not to leave a mark. Because it’s how he was brought up, and old habits die hard. Because what could he possibly offer anyone else when he has so little for himself?</p><p>“I didn’t want anyone to know me,” he says, because that’s what it always comes down to in the end. “I didn’t want them to look in and see that I’m a mess.”</p><p>“And now?”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“Do you still not want that?”</p><p>He looks back at Ronan, sharp and starkly handsome in the waning light, blue eyes unwavering and intense, the single realest thing within this dream, and shakes his head.</p><p>“I want so much more now.”</p><p>Ronan leans forward and kisses him.</p><p>It’s far more gentle than Adam ever could’ve anticipated, a barely-there brush of lips against lips, but still he feels it sizzling all the way through him, warmth stretching out to his fingertips and collecting in his stomach. He curls his hand around the back of Ronan’s neck and brings him closer, but the angle’s all wrong. They bump noses and Ronan laughs, and Adam laughs too, and then Ronan’s leaning in again and kissing him for real, and this time there’s nothing wrong with it at all.</p><p>He is so used to wanting things he can’t have, to being starved in every configuration of the word, to making do without, that the pleasure of finally havingoverwhelms his system. He basks in that heady feeling, the enormity of it no longer frightening, thoughts and sensations coalescing until all that’s left is <em>Ronan, Ronan, Ronan.</em></p><p>Ronan’s breath on his skin, Ronan’s stubble brushing against his, Ronan’s buzzed hair rough beneath his fingertips. He’s everywhere now, burrowed so deep under Adam’s skin that Adam would need to cut himself to carve him out.</p><p>Adam pulls away to breathe, to get his bearings, and all the while Ronan’s lips continue pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses along his jawline. His body tips ever further forward into Adam’s orbit, dangerously close to knocking them both flat. He settles his hand on Adam’s thigh to steady himself, and it’s this – the searing, dizzying heat, the promise of more – that gets Adam’s brain restarted.</p><p>“Just to be clear,” and his voice is so breathless it hardly sounds like him at all, “I draw the line at doing this on the floor.”</p><p>He can practically feel Ronan smirking against his skin. “How about the couch?”</p><p>He gets Ronan out of his shirt first, giving in to the long-held desire to admire his tattoo up close. This, like all his paintings, like Ronan himself, is so much morethan Adam ever expected. Adam could memorize every line of it, every twisting pattern, and he still thinks he’d find something new the next time he looked.</p><p>“It’s incredible.” He traces the swirling ink at Ronan’s shoulder blades and feels Ronan shiver beneath him. “Is the design yours?”</p><p>“Some of it,” Ronan says. “I had a couple ideas sketched out, like the tree, and I showed them to the artist and she figured out where to go with it all. Pretty damn cool to watch.”</p><p>“Would you ever get more?”</p><p>“Why the sudden interest, Parrish? You got a thing for tattoos?”</p><p>Adam hums and runs his hands along Ronan’s back, leaning down to playfully nip his earlobe. “I just might.”</p><p>Adam’s shirt goes next, pants soon following. There’s a long enough pause, while Ronan’s eyes trace the length of his body, for self-consciousness to creep back into Adam’s thoughts. For <em>you’re not worthy of this, you’re not enough</em> to reverberate in his skull. He knows he’s scrawny due to a lifetime of never eating right, that if it weren’t for years of manual labour he’d have no muscle at all. He knows he’s average at best, lacking at worst, and Ronan might change his mind now that he’s seen the whole picture.</p><p>But then Ronan whispers, “Adam,” with all the reverence of a prayer, and he realizes that he knows very little, at all.</p><p>They sprawl out on the couch, Ronan’s hands mapping Adam’s skin, Adam’s knees pressed tight against Ronan’s sides, the two of them reshaped together into one. It’s overwhelming, every touch so much and yet still not enough. It’s Ronan’s fingers digging bruises into his hip as Adam gets his hand around them both; it’s being pulled down into a soft, dreamy kiss, slowing things down when the urgency builds between them; it’s watching Ronan and Ronan watching him, and laughing breathlessly because this is <em>real</em>. He gets to have this, and if he’s careful enough he might get to keep it, too.</p><p>They lapse into silence afterwards, both out of breath and curled around one another. Adam doesn’t want to move, but his legs are cramping from the way they’ve been folded against Ronan’s sides. This couch really isn’t big enough to hold two grown men.</p><p>Ronan’s warm, though. Another compelling argument for staying in place.</p><p>He shifts so that he’s properly sprawled across Ronan’s chest, legs stretched out alongside his. Ronan drapes an arm around Adam’s waist, fingers lazily tracing the skin at the small of Adam’s back. He shivers and burrows his head into the side of Ronan’s neck, breathing him in, content for once to live fully in the current moment. What else is there, really?</p><p>Adam must’ve drifted off, because next thing he’s aware of is a hand running through his hair, gentle and teasing. He smiles and nudges his head against Ronan’s side. The hand stills.</p><p>He looks up, but Ronan’s got his eyes fixed on the fireplace.</p><p>“Why’d you stop?” he grumbles.</p><p>Ronan starts back up again, but his eyes are still distant. Adam lets it slip in his sleepy state, but when long enough passes without any resolution, he props himself up on Ronan’s chest and says, “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on in there, or do you want me to guess?”</p><p>“I’d like to see you try.”</p><p>“Ronan.”</p><p>He doesn’t say please, but he doesn’t have to. Ronan turns towards him and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind Adam’s ear. “I don’t do this kind of thing usually,” he says.</p><p>“What, talking?”</p><p>“Don’t be a shithead, shithead,” he says. “I meant I don’t do hookups.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Adam’s instinct is to shut down, close himself off, put the guards back up before any hurt can sneak through onto his face. He’s so tired of that, though. He fights against the urge, fights to keep his tone calm and even as he says, “Is that what this is?”</p><p>Ronan’s still for a moment. Then, very slowly, he brings Adam’s free hand to his face and places a careful kiss on the knuckles, one by one, before turning Adam’s palm over and pressing a final kiss to the underside of the wrist. Adam sucks in a sharp breath, completely undone.</p><p>“Not for me,” Ronan says.</p><p>It’s an obvious answer, the only possible answer, in retrospect. Ronan Lynch is not made for casual interactions. He is black or white, all-in or all-out, a tornado of intensity and sweeping emotion.</p><p>If Adam wants to do this, he needs to be all-in too. He needs to be honest.</p><p>“I don’t want that either,” he says, “for this to be a one-time thing.”</p><p>Ronan smiles one of those rare, joyful smiles of his. He tugs Adam back up until they’re face to face again and kisses him.</p><p>Adam allows it for a second and then pulls back. “I’m not the easiest of people to be with, though.”</p><p>“And you think I am?”</p><p>“You’re better at it,” he insists. “You face things instead of running away.”</p><p>“So don’t run away, then.”</p><p>He shakes his head. He’s not explaining this well.</p><p>“I don’t want to run,” he says, framing Ronan’s face with his hands. “Not from this. But there are these things…You should know about them before you make your mind up. I don’t know how to show you, though. I’m not brave like you.”</p><p>“Parrish,” Ronan says softly. “You are the single most stubborn fucker I know. Whatever shit you’re scared of, you can handle it. You can show me.”</p><p>It’s a good enough answer for now. Adam lets himself relax into Ronan’s arms, the past an obstacle to be tackled on another day. It’s still not that comfortable – they should definitely move to a bed – but he’s too tired now to make the suggestion. Plus, he likes having an excuse to stay tangled up like this.</p><p>“I’ve made my mind up, by the way,” Ronan adds, sometime later, when Adam’s already half dozing. “No take-backs.”</p><p>Adam’s still smiling when he falls asleep.</p><p>-</p><p>When Adam wakes, it’s with the scent of smoke thick in his lungs.</p><p>He doubles over coughing, the cool air around him doing little to settle him. A glass of water is pressed into his hands and he drinks it down in greedy, desperate gulps.</p><p>“The fireplace?” he says once he’s recovered.</p><p>“The fireplace,” Ronan confirms.</p><p>Adam wipes his eyes, watery from coughing, and then looks up. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting – for Ronan to embrace him? Kiss him? For Ronan to look as happy as he had back at the Barns? – but the reality is still disappointing. Ronan’s standing by the bed with his arms crossed, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He can barely look at Adam, his gaze fixed instead on the window, like the person he really wants to see is going to knock on it any minute now.</p><p>He tries not to take it personally. Ronan meant what he said last night, Adam’s sure of it. So if something’s wrong right now, it can’t be connected to them. There has to be another variable Adam’s missing here.</p><p>“What happened?” Adam climbs to his feet.</p><p>Ronan glances from the window to Adam and then back again. <em>Don’t over-think it</em>, Adam tells himself, before crossing the room and settling his hand on Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan breathes out, some of the tension loosening from his shoulders. He uncrosses his arms to take Adam’s other hand in his instead.</p><p>“Don’t freak out,” he says, turning over Adam’s palm, “but I think we’re running out of time.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>aaaaand we're in the endgame now. posting this chapter a day early because the thought of sitting on it for a full night is far too stressful, haha.</p><p>thanks so much again to everyone who's been following the story! i hope you like this one, and i'd love to hear what you think! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Adam stares at the smashed up bathroom mirror for so long that Ronan’s half convinced his soul must’ve vacated the premises and slipped inside the glass. It would be just their luck, another cherry on top of the day’s shit sundae.</p><p>“It was like this when you woke up?” he finally asks.</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“And Gansey doesn’t know anything about it?”</p><p>“Gansey thinks I did it.”</p><p>“But you didn’t.”</p><p>“Yeah, no shit.”</p><p>“And you definitely woke up later than usual?”</p><p>“Only twenty minutes.” There’s no only, though, not really. Twenty minutes today could mean forty minutes tomorrow, eighty the next, so on and so forth until he stops waking up at all.</p><p>Ronan tips his head back against the wall. Impossible, that’s what this is. Everything’s going sideways, which can only mean they’re shit out of luck. Out of luck and out of time. Armafuckinggeddon here they come.</p><p>“There’s more,” Ronan says, because he may as well rip the band-aid off now while they’re both in Doomsday mode. “Chainsaw’s missing.”</p><p>“How can she be missing?”</p><p>“You think I’d be standing here if I knew the answer?”</p><p>Adam doesn’t call him out for being a dick, or bite back just as hard, and that <em>should</em> be a good thing but in Adam’s case it’s disturbingly out of character. His back is still turned to Ronan, gaze fixed on that goddamn mirror. Maybe he sees something in the glass – a shadow lingering in the edges of each broken shard, Grim Reaper finally here with a vengeance. What the hell else could be keeping him so captivated?</p><p>“Parrish?”</p><p>Adam turns around. There’s something not quite right about his face, a vacancy in his expression that leaves Ronan chilled. Ronan glances at the mirror, but all he sees is his own shattered reflection.</p><p>“I think…” But Adam doesn’t say what he thinks. He sucks in a sharp breath and then asks, “Have you noticed anything else that’s been off since you woke up?”</p><p>“No. I mean, I don’t know. Could be. I was kinda preoccupied with my missing bird.”</p><p>“If I’m not allowed to freak out, neither are you.”</p><p>Easier said than done. Ronan’s spent the whole day freaking out, and it turns out he has an unlimited capacity for it.</p><p>He slips his hand in his jacket pocket and traces the outline of the Barns key. He’d thought, naively, that following that clue back to its source would solve all their problems, but of course the real solution needs to come from him. Ronan has to try harder to get his goddamn life back.</p><p>He needs to <em>want</em> his life back.</p><p>“Look, I don’t know what the fuck broken mirrors and missing pets have to do with anything,” he says, “but if I’m losing time, what if it’s because I don’t need it anymore?”</p><p>“Right, because you already found the key.” Adam nods along, already on Ronan’s wavelength. “So now all that’s left is–”</p><p>“The party.”</p><p>Where everything begins and ends. Where their friends are waiting with all their mixed expectations. Where Ronan continues to disappoint.</p><p>Staying here puts everyone in danger, but leaving might hurt them twice as bad.</p><p>“Gansey’s been miserable this whole time,” Adam says. “I saw him the other night. You know he spends half the night hiding in your room with a history textbook?”</p><p>It makes a sad amount of sense, in retrospect. He’d heard Gansey and Blue talking, he <em>knew </em>Gansey wasn’t happy, and why the hell would he be? This whole thing isn’t his usual scene, which can only mean it’s all for show. It’s Gansey’s fumbling attempt to please the masses and hopefully himself by proxy, the kind of<em> fake it till you make it </em>approach his family’s notorious for.</p><p>Hell, Ronan had this all figured out on the first loop. If he’d been less of an asshole about confronting Gansey, could things have turned out different?</p><p>Probably not, on second thought. But he would’ve had one less problem to tackle.</p><p>“Gansey hates parties,” he tells Adam, and then lets out a long suffering sigh. “Fuck him. <em>I</em> hate parties.”</p><p>“Moral of the story: why be miserable on your own when you can be miserable in a group setting.”</p><p>“Oh, that is heart-warming. Real glad I went to hell and back for this.”</p><p>Adam lets out one of his beautiful, surprised laughs, and instinct propels Ronan across the room. He cups Adam’s face in his palm and relishes in the way Adam leans into the embrace. The horror of today almost overshadowed the beauty of last night, but Adam’s here now, and they’re going to fix this, and this is going to work.</p><p>“If we’re staying here, we should help them set up.”</p><p>“Fuck that. They can handle it.”</p><p>Adam shoots him a disdainful look.</p><p>“Okay, fine,” Ronan sighs. “If we have to.”</p><p>Adam smiles with unabashed tenderness before leaning up to kiss him. They’ve got this now. They’ve definitely got this. When he wakes up tomorrow, everything will be back in its rightful place.</p><p>Ronan glances one last time at the mirror, just to be sure, but all he sees is his own face and the back of Adam’s head.</p><p>They’ve got this.</p><p>-</p><p>There are an endless amount of reasons why Ronan hates parties.</p><p>He hates most people, for starters. He hates wild, stupid college kids in particular. He hates loud crowds and shitty music and drunken frat boys that like to throw steak knives at his fridge. He hates watching his best friend transform into the charming presidential host that strangers adore and that Gansey himself can hardly stand.</p><p>He hates being trapped in a room that’s stock full of his biggest vice.</p><p>“Lynch, will you do me the honours?” Henry materializes beside him, a shot glass in each hand. He holds one out to Ronan, but Ronan just stares. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, because he does. He always does. There’s an itch beneath his skin that never fully goes away; ignore it too long and it turns to nausea.</p><p>The problem is Ronan’s never been suited to moderation.</p><p>“It’s not my party, man,” Ronan responds. “I’m not the one you’re supposed to get drunk.”</p><p>“You raise a good point,” Henry says, “but I’m afraid it’ll have to be you. Dick Three is busy appealing to his court.” He points across the room, to where Gansey’s currently standing amid a swarm of Harvard douchebros. It’d be so easy to read his beaming smiles and effusive hand gestures as confident, if you didn’t know better. Most people in this apartment don’t.</p><p>“Then find some other bastard to harass. I’m not drinking tonight.”</p><p>“Why ever not?”</p><p>“I’m on a self-improvement kick.”</p><p>Henry laughs until it becomes clear that Ronan’s not laughing with him.</p><p>“You’re serious?” he says, eyes widened. “A straight edge phase? In this climate?”</p><p>“The hell does that mean?”</p><p>“It means the world’s in shambles, my friend. We ought to enjoy life’s simple pleasures while we still can.”</p><p>Ronan grits his teeth but holds back from saying what’s on his tongue. Henry hasn’t seen Ronan at his worst; it’s not his fault he doesn’t get it. Even Gansey and Blue don’t get it, at least not entirely, or else he’d never see a moment’s peace without one of them hovering over his shoulder.</p><p>Drinking was only ever supposed to be his escape, but now it’s his crutch. You die enough times on repeat, you start to see who you really are.</p><p>“I’ll pass.”</p><p>“Come on, Lynch, I’m counting on you,” Henry says. “And that’s not hyperbole. Cheng2 is truly nowhere to be seen.”</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>“Nowhere to be seen as in you lost him, or he never showed up to begin with?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“Second one. I think he’s running late.”</p><p>Coincidence. It’s got to be a coincidence.</p><p>“Was he in class this morning?”</p><p>“Now that you mention it, no.” Henry frowns then, as though it’s only just occurring to him how strange this is. “I don’t believe he was.”</p><p><em>Fuck, fuck, fuck</em>. Not a coincidence.</p><p>“Call him.”</p><p>“Since when are you and Cheng2 such good friends?”</p><p>Ronan couldn’t care less about Henry Broadway or any of the other dumbasses at this party, but there’s no succinct way of explaining <em>accidently got some bystanders wiped out of existence</em> to his priest, and Sunday confession’s not really designed for further questioning.</p><p>“Just do it,” Ronan snaps. “And while we’re at it, tell me who else is missing.”</p><p>“Ah, I see what this is now,” Henry says. “If you’re going to hunt down the no-shows, might I suggest–”</p><p>“Your friend’s here.” Adam’s suddenly right there on his left, hand coming up to rest on Ronan’s arm – a casual, grounding gesture that shakes some of the tension off Ronan’s skin. He looks calm and self-contained on the surface, but Ronan knows his tells by now. When Ronan turns to face him, Adam’s brows are pinched with worry. Has he noticed the missing party-goers too, or is it something worse?</p><p>“What friend?” he asks.</p><p>“Blonde one. The art major?”</p><p>“Noah.”</p><p>“What about you, Parrish?” Henry holds out the second shot glass. “Care for a drink?”</p><p>Adam takes one long look at the shot, regarding it with more intensity than it really warrants. Ronan catches his eye, gives him a look that says, <em>What now?</em> But Adam gives a slight shake of his head. Then he smiles, all for show, and takes the drink out of Henry’s hand.</p><p>“Why the hell not?” he says. “We’re all dying, aren’t we?”</p><p>“I’ll drink to that.”</p><p>Ronan leaves them to it. He glances around the room in search for Noah. It doesn’t <em>look </em>like anyone else is missing, but then again, it’s not like he took much of the party in to begin with. Doubtful he would’ve realized Cheng2 was gone if Henry hadn’t opened his mouth first.</p><p>It’s fine. Not a problem. They’ve <em>got this</em>, dammit. They just need to get through tonight, keeping everyone happy, and then everything will go back to the way it should be, time-space fuckery begone. Simple.</p><p>He finds Noah on the other side of the room chatting with, of all the people, fucking Stoner Dude.</p><p>“Lynch!” he cries when he catches sight of Ronan. He barrels towards Ronan and pulls him into a hug that Ronan grudgingly allows until it gets uncomfortable.</p><p>“Jesus, Czerny, you’re bony as shit.”</p><p>Noah lets him go and grins. “I’m happy to see you too, man.”</p><p>“I just saw you a few hours ago.”</p><p>“And I’m happy to see you again.”</p><p>Ronan rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Ha!” Noah shouts. “That was a smile! Admit it, this party wouldn’t be a party without me. You know I had this rave organized for tonight – my friend Billie, you’d love her man, she’s like, all scary and shit – well her cousin Bulldog knows a guy who does, like, DJing or whatever, they set us up. It was gonna be this whole thing. I told them I’d be back later but you know when you get the feeling you <em>have</em> to be somewhere? Like you have to. It’s meant to be. Well I think I’m meant to be here, man. Tell me you’re happy to see me.”</p><p>“I’m not <em>not</em> happy to see you,” Ronan says, and Noah’s grin widens. “Hey, listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.”</p><p>“See, I knew it. I’ve gotta be here. It’s like cosmic. Is this a blind date?”</p><p>“No, shithead. If you hit on her, expect to leave this party in a hearse.”</p><p>“I love the sound of her already,” Noah says. “Where can I find this scary mystery woman? Does she have a name?”</p><p>Ronan points out Blue and sends Noah off with instructions on how not to get on her bad side. It’s just a hunch, but he figures Blue will take to Noah’s sunny demeanour and find his constant hyperactivity charming. Plus, some new company might save her from getting into pointless arguments with spoiled Neanderthals.</p><p>Next problem: Gansey. It’s easy enough to find him flitting from group to group, ever the appeasing host. He’s all bright smiles and declarative speeches, misery carefully concealed beneath a veneer of warmth.</p><p>He waits until Gansey’s completed his circuit of the room before taking the place of the last hanger-on and asking, “How many of these assholes can you actually stand?”</p><p>“Ronan.” Gansey smiles, but it’s all teeth. “These are good people. Talk to some of them, they might surprise you.”</p><p>“Dude.”</p><p>“Whatever that look means, I’m electing to ignore it.”</p><p>“Just admit it,” Ronan says. “You’re five minutes away from hiding out in your room with a textbook.”</p><p>Gansey tilts his head and gives Ronan a curious look, one that says<em> how the hell did you know that? </em></p><p>“Fuck, man,” he says. “What made you think a party was a good idea in the first place?”</p><p>“People like parties,” Gansey protests.</p><p>“<em>You </em>don’t like parties. Parrish doesn’t like parties. I sure as shit don’t like parties. Sargent can take them or leave them.”</p><p>“Henry likes parties.”</p><p>“Congrats on having one maladjusted friend.”</p><p>Gansey sighs, but he doesn’t dispute any of it. “I might’ve gone a little overboard with the guest list,” he admits.</p><p>“You think?”</p><p>“Everyone I want to see is here, though. That has to count for something.”</p><p>“Yep,” Ronan agrees. “We’re all here suffering together, so don’t get any ideas about leaving.”</p><p>Gansey rolls his eyes, but the effect Ronan’s words have on him is clear. When he smiles this time, it’s not some bogus politician shit. Ronan drags him across the room to where Henry’s posted by the speakers, and Henry immediately grins and pulls another two shots out of nowhere.</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know if I–”</p><p>“Nonsense, birthday boy! I won’t hear it. It is my god-given duty as co-host of this party to get you absolutely shitfaced tonight.”</p><p>The Gansey problem: tackled.</p><p>With that out the way, Ronan grits his teeth and makes a herculean effort to actually enjoy the party. Easier said than done when you’re ever-conscious of the timer counting down to your death. Still, he tries. No one can say he doesn’t try. And truth be told, it’s not <em>completely </em>unbearable. The people he cares about are all happy and accounted for. No one’s hiding away in dark rooms or starting arguments that go nowhere or engaging in ill-advised hook-ups. Him and Adam are both here, both present, and Ronan’s sober enough to actually remember what happens. Hell, he’s ready to count this night as a success.The universe can fuck with him all it wants, but Ronan’s got shit covered. He’s got it solved.</p><p>If things still feel wrong, well, that’s only because Ronan’s not used to them going right.</p><p>“You know I gotta say, Lynch, you’re full of surprises tonight,” Blue says to him sometime later. He’s taken a break from giving Henry shit about his god awful taste in men to grab some water from the kitchen (and if he scared off the steak knife dart screw while in here, that’s his business). “Are you feeling okay?</p><p>“There’s nothing wrong with keeping hydrated.”</p><p>“You know that’s not what I meant.”</p><p>Ronan sets his empty glass down on the counter. There’s no right answer here, so he goes for no answer.</p><p>Blue fiddles with one of the bracelets on her wrist. She looks almost rueful when she says, “I didn’t think you’d hang around this long.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, God knows you messy fuckers need someone to save you from yourselves.”</p><p>“Right. And that’s you all of a sudden?”</p><p>He shrugs. “It’s my higher purpose, apparently.”</p><p>Blue’s brows furrow. Her gaze is contemplative as she looks him over, and Ronan’s hit with the sudden memory of being on the receiving end of a much harsher stare all those nights ago. <em>Get it together, Ronan. You’re a mess</em>. Except, no, he never spoke to Blue at the original party. He never thought about her at all.</p><p>But he’d come back.</p><p>On the stairs, shoulders colliding, Blue reaching out with a steadying hand as his balance went out the window. And then…nothing. Or no, that’s not quite right. There’s something, but it snakes just out of reach every time he tries to grasp it. His mind flares static, broadcast interrupted just when it gets good. He can get the memory back if he tunes in long enough; it’s instinct, that coiled, tight feeling in his gut, that’s propelling him to change the channel, to turn away.</p><p>“Ronan?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Blue looks at him funnily. “I just said it’s nice, is all. That you’re here.”</p><p>Shame colours Ronan’s face. He twists his mouth into the shape of a sneer and says, “Don’t push it, Sargent.”</p><p>“Ugh. It’s a compliment, asshole. You’re supposed to say – Oh, shit, your nose.”</p><p>She grabs his arm before he can say anything and starts tugging him towards the stools. Tries to, anyway. Ronan digs his heels in, which isn’t difficult given the absurd height disparity. “What the hell, man?”</p><p>“Your nose is all–” She gestures at her face. Ronan touches his fingers to the space beneath his nose and grimaces; it’s wet. When he pulls his hand away, it’s covered in blood.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>“Just sit down,” Blue insists. “I’ll get a tissue or something.”</p><p>Ronan shakes his head. He can feel it now, a steady trickle of blood making its way down his face. He tastes copper on his tongue and grimaces. There’s only one thing that can mean. He needs to get out of here before it happens. Needs to find Adam.</p><p>Where<em> is</em> Adam?</p><p>Ronan looks around, but there’s no sign of him anywhere. Did he go into one of the back rooms? Did he step outside? Ronan brushes past Blue, ignoring her protests. The room sways when he takes another step forward. Why<em> now?</em></p><p>“Ronan, are you–?”</p><p>“I’ll be right back,” he says, and makes a beeline for the door. “If you see Parrish, tell him I’m outside.”</p><p>He makes it past the front door and into the stairwell, but there’s still no Adam to be seen. The blood’s getting heavier now and his eyes are blurring with each movement, and fuck it, he needs to get out of here before Blue decides to come following after him and witness the gory outcome for herself. He stumbles past the group of women loitering in the corridor, onto the stairs, barrelling down them as quick as he dares.</p><p>“Stay the fuck back!” he shouts, as some guy tries to overtake him. “I mean it! Keep your goddamn dist–”</p><p>He’s knocked swift off his feet, body barrelling over the bannister, Jesus Mary shitting–</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan wakes up gasping. The Beach Boys are playing on the radio. He picks his phone up off the night stand and checks the time. <em>14:43.</em></p><p>“Sonuvabitch!” He throws the phone across the room.</p><p>What did he do wrong? Nothing. He thought of everything. But he’s still here, and he’s lost two and a half hours, and Good Vibrations is still playing on Gansey’s oldies radio station. What is<em> up </em>with that?</p><p>The buzzer rings. That’ll be Declan, again.</p><p>Ronan shoves on a pair of pants and storms out into the hallway. Sure enough, it’s his brother. He waits at the door as Declan makes his way up in the elevator and then wordlessly lets him inside.</p><p>“You should shave,” Declan says as he hangs his coat up. “You look rough.”</p><p>“Good morning to you too, pisshead.”</p><p>“It’s almost three in the afternoon. Please don’t tell me you just woke up.”</p><p>“I have a flexible work schedule,” Ronan says, just to watch Declan glower, which he does.</p><p>Ronan throws himself down on the couch and waits for Declan to follow suit. He’s had several versions of this conversation by now and none of them are ever identical, but they all follow the same pattern. Step one: Declan issues his backhanded apology and begs for the chance to say what he’s came here to say. Step two: Ronan nods along at all the right moments and agrees their father is an asshole. Step three: reconciliation, or something like it.</p><p>It works out every time – Declan always gives him the key – but if Ronan’s still here then he must be missing<em> something.</em> What else is there, though? Hasn’t he proven himself enough times over? Hasn’t he fixed what needed to be fixed, helped who needed to be helped? Who else is left?</p><p>
  <em>Get it together, Ronan. You’re a mess.</em>
</p><p>“So,” Declan says. He looks around the room, his gaze fixing on a spot behind Ronan’s head. “How’ve you been?”</p><p>His bird’s gone missing. People are going missing. He’s being hit with spontaneous nosebleeds. He’s running out of time and every attempt to fix it has gone haywire. But Ronan settles for, “Peachy keen.”</p><p>“Right.” The room lapses into silence. Ronan really doesn’t have time for this today. “Well, listen. I’ve been wanting to talk–”</p><p>“I know what you’re gonna say.”</p><p>Declan shakes his head. “Trust me, you really don’t.”</p><p>“Trust me, I really do. You’re sorry for being an asshole but Dad’s the real asshole. He fucked us all over and now you’re selling the Barns to do damage control. Did I get that right?”</p><p>“There’s a lot more to it than that.”</p><p>“Yeah, sure, there always is,” Ronan says. “Look, I don’t care anymore. You can sell the house and I won’t hate you for it. Can we move the hell on now?”</p><p>Declan’s expression shifts from blandly interested to downright bewildered in the blink of an eye.</p><p>“Move on?” he says flatly. “Ronan, I’ve been ready to move on for months. I never wanted to fight with you at all.”</p><p>“Yeah, I get that, okay?” Ronan snaps. “You’re right, I’m wrong, you’re well-adjusted, I’m a fuck-up. Does that about cover it? Because I’m kinda busy here, man. Got a long-ass to-do list to get through.”</p><p>“You think I’m well-adjusted?”</p><p>Of course that’s the part Declan focuses on. “On second thought, no. You’re a fucking polisci major. There’s definitely something wrong with your head.”</p><p>Declan laughs then, and it’s possibly the weirdest sound Ronan’s ever heard in this apartment. He hasn’t heard Declan laugh in a long time, and he doesn’t think what he said was funny enough to warrant it now, which can only mean his brother is having a nervous breakdown right here in front of him. Like Ronan has time for that, today of all days.</p><p>“You really don’t know,” Declan says, and then fails to elaborate.</p><p>“What don’t I know?”</p><p>“You’re not the only one who lost Mom and Dad, Ronan.”</p><p>Ronan’s eyes widen. That’s one way of putting it.</p><p>“All the things you went through, me and Matthew went through them too,” Declan continues, clearly on a roll now. “You think you’re the only one who struggles with it? Who misses them?”</p><p>He could give the right answer, that of course he knows this, but the honest answer is longer and far more complicated to explain. They might be one in the same, the orphans Lynch, but only one of them got stalled in the mud. His brothers chose college while Ronan chose substance abuse.</p><p>“You handled it better than me,” he grumbles, the simplest way of putting it.</p><p>“We handled it differently from you. That doesn’t mean it was easier.”</p><p>Ronan looks away, training his eyes on the coffee table. Maybe it wasn’t easier, but they made it look that way. Matthew’s the sunniest guy Ronan knows, and Declan’s Declan. He’s got the fancy suites, the fancy internships, the fancy career prospects. If he’s been falling apart this whole time, he must’ve kept it welled up deep inside.</p><p>Like Adam, then.</p><p>“Look, I’ve been seeing someone,” Declan says.</p><p>“Jordan? What does she have to do with this?”</p><p>Declan gives him a funny look. Right, Ronan’s not supposed to know about that. He’s not supposed to mention that he met her, that he liked her, that he’s actually happy his miserable sucker of a brother found someone to put up with him.</p><p>“I’ve been dating Jordan, yes,” Declan says. “That’s not what I meant.”</p><p>“Oh fuck off. You mean a head shrinker.”</p><p>“A therapist. They’re called therapists.”</p><p>“I don’t need some stranger screwing around up there.”</p><p>“They’re trained professionals, and their job isn’t to ‘screw around.’ It’s to help you make sense of things that need making sense of.”</p><p>“I don’t need help making sense of things,” Ronan insists. “I know damn well what my problem is.”</p><p>“Maybe you’re right,” Declan says in a tone that indicates he believes the exact opposite. “All I’m saying is it’s worth keeping an open mind about, okay? You don’t have to deal with this by yourself.”</p><p>Paying some scumbag to listen to him talk about his feelings sounds like a worse form of hell than the one he’s currently living in, but Ronan gets that this is more about Declan than him. His brother, in his own awkward way, is trying to be <em>nice</em> and <em>supportive </em>and a bunch of other adjectives that make them both cringe. He wants to help, and that means offering solutions rather than a shoulder to cry on.</p><p>And what does Ronan have to lose by playing along? He’s dying, after all.</p><p>So Ronan sucks it up and says, “I’ll consider it.”</p><p>-</p><p>“Killer nosebleed?”</p><p>“Asthma attack.”</p><p>“Since when are you asthmatic?”</p><p>“Since ten minutes ago, apparently.”</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>Ronan sits down heavily on the bed. He wants to drink until he forgets, wants to tear at his skin until the hopelessness bleeds away, wants to get behind the wheel and drive until he crashes.</p><p>He reaches for Adam’s hand instead. Runs his thumb along calloused skin, traces the winding palm lines right down to Adam’s pulse point. If they’re dying for real, Ronan wants to enjoy this while there’s still time.</p><p>He’s dreamt of dying many times before, but now that it’s actually happening he’d kinda like to live.</p><p>“If we’re doing everything right,” he says, “then why the fuck are we still here?”</p><p>Adam tangles their hands together.</p><p>“Did you ever remember what happened the first time?”</p><p>Ronan stills.</p><p>“We don’t know if it means anything.”</p><p>“Maybe not,” Adam allows. “But it’s the only missing variable.”</p><p>“What about <em>your </em>missing variable? Did you find out why you’re hallucinating your younger self?” A thought occurs to Ronan then, obvious in hindsight. “Wait, is that who you saw in the mirror?”</p><p>“I didn’t see anyone in the mirror,” Adam says, and Ronan knows instinctively that he’s telling the truth. “He was there last night, though. I think seeing him is what spurred my death.”</p><p>“That happened the first time you saw him, too,” Ronan points out, and Adam nods grimly. His hand tightens around Ronan’s own, possibly unintentional, probably not. If Ronan’s running from the liquor-soaked memory of that first night then Adam’s running from this. The past has its hooks in them both, but if they don’t face it head-on then they might be doomed for good.</p><p>“Have you tried asking him what he wants?”</p><p>“He’s not here to talk. Trust me on that.”</p><p>“What’s he here for, then?”</p><p>Adam shakes his head. He’s gripping Ronan’s hand so tightly that Ronan’s sure he’ll leave imprints behind.</p><p>“To torment me,” he says. “What else?”</p><p>-</p><p>There are definitely less people this time around.</p><p>It’s no one Ronan knows by name, but it’s faces he’s come to expect. The tallest of the drunken dart players; the blonde in the faux fur coat; the bright-eyed hanger-on that’s always within Gansey’s orbit.</p><p>Gone, missing, wiped clean out of the picture.</p><p>Nothing to worry about, for sure.</p><p>“Have you seen Cheng2?” he asks Henry, as he’s ousted from his DJing gig. A new guy takes up the position, Madonna giving way to Talking Heads.</p><p>“Now that you mention it, I have not.” Henry tips his head thoughtfully. But then Ronan turns around and realizes he’s not staring off into space at all; he’s staring at that dumbass with the big head, who’s arguing with Blue, who’s not distracted with Noah because there is no Noah. Ronan never had the time to meet him.</p><p>All of last night’s progress has gone down the damn drain, and the fabric of the universe is unravelling, and all Ronan wants to do is check the fuck out.</p><p>He wants to live even more, though.</p><p>“Focus, Cheng.” Ronan snaps his fingers in front of Henry’s face. “If you haven’t seen him, you need to give him a call. He might be – Oh, <em>come on</em>.”</p><p>“Don’t give me that attitude,” Henry says. “I haven’t got laid in months.”</p><p>“I don’t care if you’re the damn Virgin Mary. You need to take this shit in.”</p><p>“If Cheng2 chose to miss out on a good party, that’s his prerogative.”</p><p>“It’s not about him missing the party,” Ronan says through gritted teeth. “It’s about whether or not he still exists.”</p><p>Henry doesn’t so much as blink an eyelid at that declaration. He lets out a highly exaggerated yawn and then says, “Are you finished now?”</p><p>“Not a chance, shitbag. I’m not leaving till you call your friend.”</p><p>Henry groans, but he unlocks his phone. He dials and holds it up to his ear for several seconds before sighing.</p><p>“No answer?” Ronan asks.</p><p>“No signal. How Dick Three managed to pick the one apartment on this block with limited cell reception is a mystery for the ages.”</p><p>“Just give me the number. I’ll call him myself.” He looks around for a pen or something to write with and then scribbles down the digits on his hand.</p><p>He heads to Gansey’s room, the only place with decent reception, before remembering with a curse that his phone’s in pieces on his bedroom floor. God<em>dammit</em>. Is it too much to ask that one thing goes right?</p><p>Ronan looks around for a familiar face in the crowd. <em>There</em>, Adam, pressed against the wall beside the window, talking on the phone. Ronan pushes his way through the throng, only to get immediately slammed into by some giggly dancing drunks.</p><p>“Ever heard of personal boundaries?” he snaps as he helps the girl regain her balance. She laughs even harder and points at his face.</p><p>“I ain’t got time for that now,” she sings in a faux-deep voice.</p><p>“I really don’t,” Ronan says, and pushes her into the arms of her equally shitfaced friend. When he looks up, Adam’s nowhere to be seen. <em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>Blue’s there, though. She’s talking to some girl Ronan’s never noticed before, the two of them huddled close in camaraderie.</p><p>“Lynch.” She tugs on his shirt sleeve and pulls him into the circle. Her own shirt’s covered in booze. “Meet Nina. Nina just poured her drink all over me.”</p><p>Blue and Nina fall into helpless wails of laughter. One pro of drinking: you don’t have to put up with other drunks’ bullshit sober.</p><p>“Can I borrow your phone?”</p><p>“Can you find it?”</p><p>He sighs and backs away.</p><p>“Wait, I’m kidding.” Blue pulls the phone out her pocket and hands it over. “See, I can be nice. You’re never nice.”</p><p>“Get it together, Sargent. You’re a mess.”</p><p>The hallway is quiet, either because the usual lusty bystanders have retreated back to the main event or they’ve been wiped out. Ronan’s about to head to Gansey’s room when he hears Adam’s muffled voice coming from the next room over. The bathroom.</p><p>“I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want to…Okay…Right…I’m sorry you feel that way, Mom.”</p><p>Ronan waits for him to talk again, but when a minute goes by silently he figures the phone call’s over. He steps inside.</p><p>Adam spins around when Ronan shuts the door, eyes wild until he sees who it is. He lets out a harsh, unsteady breath and tucks his hands in his pockets. Ronan’s gaze drifts up to the shattered glass on the wall. Adam’s phone has a signal; he could’ve gone anywhere to make that call, so it’s surely not a coincidence that he chose here.</p><p>There’s nothing in the mirror, Adam said so himself, but it clearly must mean<em> something</em> to have him so on edge like this. It means something, but Adam won’t share.</p><p>It means something, and Adam is afraid.</p><p>He wants to be hurt that Adam doesn’t trust him enough to tell him, but his hurt <em>for </em>Adam wins out. He wants to hold Adam close and make that haunted look in his eyes go away for good. He wants more nights like the other night, both of them sealed away in a dream where everything is safe and good. But they can’t have that if they don’t deal with this first.</p><p>“What’s the deal, Parrish?”</p><p>“I didn’t know for sure,” he says. “I didn’t want to bring it up unless – I thought it was a coincidence.”</p><p>“The mirror?”</p><p>He nods. “It’s a message. For me, not for you. It’s connected to that thing I’ve been seeing.”</p><p>That thing. Kid Adam. Not a hallucination but a memory, something awful enough that Adam doesn’t want to face it.</p><p>Ronan has one of those too.</p><p>“<em>Shit</em>.”</p><p>Ronan’s about to ask what’s wrong, but then he spots the blood beginning to dribble from Adam’s nose. His own face must be a mirror image.</p><p>Adam backs up against the sink, a low murmuring of, “No, come on, don’t do this again” coming from his mouth, eyes locked on a spirit Ronan can’t see. “What more do you<em> want</em>?”</p><p>There’s a knock on the door. The handle turns, and Ronan moves lightning quick to throw his weight against the wood.</p><p>“Dude, what gives?” That voice. It’s Big Head, which means Henry’s only a few minutes behind.</p><p>“Find some other spot to hook up in, shitbag,” Ronan shouts. “I’m not cleaning your jizz off my goddamn tiles.”</p><p>“Ronan,” Adam says, voice faint yet desperate, “you need to figure out what happened to you. I don’t think we’ve got much–”</p><p>He slumps down, head hitting the wall. Ronan abandons the door and drops to his knees beside Adam. The room tilts dangerously. He pulls Adam’s convulsing body into his arms as the door gives way behind him and the voice behind him shouts, “Oh my god, oh my god, what the fuck,<em> is he</em>–!”</p><p>“Hey, Adam, c’mon, what’s the message? Adam–”</p><p>“We need an ambulance, oh my god, where’s your phone, oh my–”</p><p>“Ronan! Shit! Brad, here, call 911. Ronan, what’s–”</p><p>Ronan feels himself slipping. Ears ringing, heart pounding rapid-fire in his chest, this terrible tingling sensation seizing him from head to toe. The cackle around him becomes distant white noise as his own body starts to convulse, and he reaches for Adam’s hand–</p><p>-</p><p>He wakes up. Checks his phone. Stares blankly at the screen until another minute’s passed.</p><p><em>17:18. </em>Half his day is gone.</p><p>How many chances have they got left?</p><p>-</p><p>Adam called Ronan brave, but he’s got it twisted. When push comes to shove, Ronan will sooner run from his problems rather than face them. Drinking. Driving. Dreaming. There’s always somewhere better to be, and it’s anywhere he can’t be followed.</p><p>He has the haziest recollection of leaning over the edge of the apartment’s rooftop, swallowing in the night air, but there’s no telling if it was <em>that</em> night or one of the many others when he’s been blackout drunk. Still, coming up here again is as good an idea as any. Doesn’t he deserve to watch the sun go down one last time before he’s neutered out of existence, or whatever the hell comes next?</p><p>Ronan gazes out at the Cambridge skyline, both hands gripping the railing. He never wanted to move to here, because it’s louder and far more crowded than what he’s used to, because it’s home to shiny Ivy League assholes he has nothing in common with and can’t help resenting, because it isn’t home. Because he doesn’t know who he is here, or anywhere that’s not home.</p><p>He could be someone, though, if he tried.</p><p>How desperately he wants to try.</p><p>“So this is where you always wander off to.”</p><p>That’s Gansey’s voice, only that doesn’t make sense. This isn’t how the script is supposed to go.</p><p>“How’d you find me?” he asks.</p><p>Gansey comes over and stands beside him. He’s changed into his party clothes, pressed slacks and a bright fuchsia abomination of a shirt, so at least one thing is still normal.</p><p>“Parrish had a hunch you’d be up here. I can’t imagine how he figured that out.”</p><p>“Parrish is here?” Awake, and with an awareness of where to look for Ronan, even though Ronan hasn’t been around to wake him up?</p><p>“He’s here,” Gansey confirms, and gives Ronan a stern look as if to say, <em>And you’ll just have to deal with that. </em>“Your phone’s been ringing non-stop for the last twenty minutes. He wanted me to tell you, and I’m quoting here, ‘Don’t be a shithead, shithead.’”</p><p>Ronan barks out a laugh, the sound echoing in the wind. At least his phone is good for something. He can feel Gansey’s eyes on him, scrutinizing him, but he finds that he doesn’t mind for once.</p><p>“Should I be concerned about leaving you both unsupervised tonight?”</p><p>“Chill the fuck out, <em>Dad</em>. The kids are gonna be fine.”</p><p>“God. I’m overstepping again, aren’t I?”</p><p>“Well, at least you’re self-aware about it.” Before Gansey can have a full-scale crisis about his ‘unseemly’ character flaws, Ronan asks, “Did you bring the phone with you?”</p><p>“I figured you’d be offended if I did,” Gansey says. “The calls were all from Declan.”</p><p>Relief settles in Ronan’s bones. He never realized until now just how fiercely he would miss his older brother’s nagging if he was zapped out of existence. How he would miss his older brother, period.</p><p>“I’ll text him or something,” he mutters, and Gansey’s brows rise comically high.</p><p>“I’m sorry, did you just say you’ll text him? As in, you’ll willingly communicate? With Declan?”</p><p>“We talk sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”</p><p>“How are we defining ‘talk’ here? Communicating information through speech? Or trading clever barbs back and forth?”</p><p>“I mean he tells me shit and sometimes I listen. And there’s nothing clever about his insults, by the way.”</p><p>“Astounding,” Gansey says. “How did I not know about this?”</p><p>“I told you weeks ago. You’re just a real shitty listener.”</p><p>Gansey’s mouth thins out. He actually believes it, and better yet, he looks downright disturbed.</p><p>“I’m kidding, Jesus,” Ronan says. “He cornered me this morning.”</p><p>“And your instinct wasn’t to give him the finger and run?”</p><p>He rolls his eyes, although that <em>does</em> just about describe his initial reaction to Declan’s presence. “I figured we’d have to talk it out sooner or later. May as well do it sooner.”</p><p>“Well,” Gansey says slowly. He’s clearly still having trouble computing any of this. “That is astonishingly mature of you.”</p><p>“You don’t have to sound so shocked.”</p><p>“I’m not. I always knew you had it in you.”</p><p>“And yet you wonder why people call you old man.” Ronan shoves at Gansey, who gives him a mock wounded look in return.</p><p>“What’s happening with the Barns, then? Have you come to an agreement on it yet?”</p><p>“We’re selling it.” No wavering, no hesitations. It’s final now, and he can live with that. The Barns will always be home, but he doesn’t have to be tethered to it. He can make a home out here in the world, too. Can’t he?</p><p>Gansey’s wounded face switches to his sympathetic face. “I’m sorry, Ronan.”</p><p>“Hey, that’s my line. It’s you that’s gonna need to put up with me from now on.”</p><p>“I’d never ask you to apologize for that,” and he’s so earnest that Ronan has no choice but to believe him, “You make a brilliant roommate.”</p><p>“When I’m here, you mean.”</p><p>Gansey doesn’t look amused or sympathetic or mock wounded this time around. He just looks fucking sad. It’s the same sadness Ronan had seen inscribed in Declan’s face when they spoke yesterday and every time before that, one that runs bone deep, the product of standing in the blast zone when Ronan hits the self-destruct button. Hurting himself means hurting everyone else too, and that’s not a game worth playing in the long-run.</p><p>Change never happens all at once, though. There are no quick fixes, no simple solutions. It’s not enough to turn everything around in one day; he needs to show up tomorrow and the next day, too.</p><p>When Ronan thinks of it like that, he shudders. Where the hell does he even start?</p><p>With help, probably.</p><p>Screw Declan for being right about something.</p><p>“You’re here now,” Gansey finally says. He offers up a smile that Ronan gratefully returns.</p><p>“What choice do I have?” Ronan says. “You know, throwing a party just to get me to hang out with you is easily one of the dumbest ideas you’ve ever had.”</p><p>“Oh, that is <em>not </em>why I threw this party.”</p><p>“It fucking is too. Don’t deny it. You want all your friends under the one roof and you want us all to smile and get along and stop being so sad all the damn time, even if you gotta make yourself miserable to do it.”</p><p>Gansey looks away, so it’s safe to say Ronan’s got it right.</p><p>“I mean, fuck, man. You couldn’t have just paid for us all to go paintballing or something?”</p><p>“You don’t actually expect me to trust you with a paintball gun, do you?”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have to. You’d be on my team. You and me versus Sargent, Cheng and Parrish.”</p><p>“Well that’s unjust. I’m not playing if the teams are unbalanced.”</p><p>“Sargent’s two feet tall. She doesn’t count as a whole person.”</p><p>Gansey shoves at <em>him</em> this time, although he’s suppressing a smile. “Can you imagine Blue unleashed on a paintball field?” he says. “It’d be a bloodbath.”</p><p>“A slaughterhouse. She’d wipe the floor with you,” Ronan agrees cheerfully. “On second thought, the two of you can switch sides.”</p><p>They both laugh until the moment passes and they lapse into comfortable silence. Ronan watches the city street-lamps switch on, illuminating stately red-brick buildings and the gleaming Harvard bell tower. Not where Ronan would’ve picked to settle down, but the company’s not so bad. Silver linings and all.</p><p>“Is it really that dumb?” Gansey asks, several minutes later. “The party?”</p><p>“I don’t know. You tell me.” Ronan’s done his part; if Gansey can’t figure the rest out for himself at this point then he’s a lost cause.</p><p>“I want everyone to be happy, that’s all. And I thought if we all spent some time together, in a social setting…Well, I don’t know what I was thinking, actually. You’re right. I should’ve gone for something smaller. <em>Paintballing.</em> Christ. Why didn’t that occur to me?”</p><p>“Because I wasn’t there to suggest it,” Ronan supplies.</p><p>Gansey gets that miserable wounded look on his face again. It’s not Ronan’s fault – or, well, it <em>is </em>his fault, but not for bringing it up. It’s the elephant in the room that needs addressing, after all.</p><p>“Look,” he says, “I’ve been an asshole lately.”</p><p>“That’s not–”</p><p>“Not true?” Ronan shoots him a dubious glance.</p><p>“You’ve had a lot going on. I get it.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, still no excuse, right? Everybody’s got shit to deal with. I’m not special or whatever.”</p><p>“Ronan. You don’t need to explain–”</p><p>“We fucking live together, dude. You’re allowed to be pissed at me for never being around.”</p><p>“I <em>worry</em> about you,” Gansey says, “but I’m not pissed at you. I just wish you’d talk to me about it. I don’t like watching you struggle with these things on your own.”</p><p>Gansey’s concern is as painfully familiar to him as Declan’s nagging and Matthew’s pleading puppy dog eyes, the only constants of the last three years. He’s gotten so used to playing it off, turning to mockery, anything to change the subject and get his brothers the hell off his back. Easier to downplay the problem than admit to other people that it exists.</p><p>But Ronan’s problems aren’t going away any time soon and neither is Ronan, not if he can help it. So doing nothing is not an option.</p><p>“I’ll talk,” he says. “I mean, not right now. At some point, I guess.”</p><p>“It doesn’t have to be me,” Gansey says. “You could always–”</p><p>“Don’t say therapy, man.”</p><p>“What about an AA meeting? Or a bereavement support group?”</p><p>“Where you sit in a circle jerking off to other strangers’ tragedies while singing kumbaya? That might be the only thing worse than therapy.”</p><p>“Ronan.”</p><p>“What? How would <em>you</em> know that’s not how it works?”</p><p>“You could try a new hobby, then,” Gansey continues on, unaffected. “Something to keep your mind active. What if we both got gym memberships?”</p><p>Ronan doubles over laughing.</p><p>“I’m being serious,” Gansey protests.</p><p>“I know. That’s the worst part.” Ronan shakes his head and says, “If you really wanna sign us up, go ahead.”</p><p>“Really? You mean it?”</p><p>“Sure. Whatever makes you happy, Dick.”</p><p>“Actually, how about golf?” Gansey says. “I have some colleagues that–”</p><p>“Absolutely the fuck not.”</p><p>Gansey grins. Then his eyes fall on his watch, and he says, “I better get back down there before Blue and Henry take the decorating too far. Are you coming with?”</p><p>“I’ll be down in five.”</p><p>Gansey smiles, gives him a friendly shoulder pat, and then heads downstairs.</p><p>Alone with his thoughts, Ronan shuts his eyes. The February air is cool, harsh, a welcome reprieve from the stuffiness of the party. He basks in it until his mind feels calm and settled, until he’s completely centered. Then he opens his eyes and looks down.</p><p>This is what he’s been running from. Wind stinging his face, tears so heavy he could barely tell up from down, liquid poison in his veins that only amplified the darker urges in his heart. <em>Get it together, Ronan. You’re a mess</em>. But he knew that already, and fixing himself up was not on the rota.</p><p>He’d been angry. He was always angry, because what was there to be happy about? Mom and Dad were gone. The Barns was gone. His brothers – one loved, one despised – had moved the hell on. And now he was here, first-hand witness to Gansey’s exploits in the Real World, surrounded by the shiniest of shiny Ivy League fuckers whose lives were going places Ronan could not comprehend.</p><p>
  <em>Alone, alone, alone.</em>
</p><p>He remembers now. He never truly forgot.</p><p>He keeps the channel turned on and watches as the picture resettles.</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan gently shuts the door behind him and sneaks his way past his friends. Easy enough to do; they’re all distracted, attempting to straighten out a banner on the other side of the living room. He makes it all the way down the hall, into his bedroom, and then he sits on the bed and – just stares, blankly, at the wall.</p><p>The emotions are all right there, simmering on the edge the surface, but the numbness hasn’t worn off yet. Shock. Is this shock? He doesn’t think he’s shocked. Of course this is how it happened; this is the only thing that makes sense, the only way it could’ve ended. Ronan’s always been his own worst enemy.</p><p>“Ronan? Did something happen?”</p><p>He can’t bring himself to look at Adam, sure that he’ll see the bleeding, convulsing Adam from last night looking back. “Apart from the seizures?”</p><p>Pressure on the bed beside him. Hand curling around his. Warm breath against his ear, and then,“There was an accident when I was thirteen. That’s the message. My dad…It was my fault, that time. I got so angry, and then I looked up and the mirror was smashed. It was me.”</p><p>Ronan turns around, takes in Adam’s glorious, elegant face in the dark. His eyes are far away, caught up in old memories, but his beautiful hand is locked tight around Ronan’s. He thinks he’s the only thing grounding Adam to this room.</p><p>“I should’ve told you the minute I saw it. I knew what it was. I just didn’t want it to be true. I don’t want…I don’t like to think about it. Any of it. But that’s what this is, right? You went back home, and now I have to too.”</p><p>He’s shaking, or maybe that’s Ronan. Maybe it’s the two of them. Ronan can feel it now, feelings rising to the surface, so much he could drown in them. There’s an awful, tight knot at the back of his throat and he recognizes it for what it is, insurmountable grief, not for Mom or Dad but for himself. The horror of that first loop, that first death. Of his dangerous past self who never realized what he had to lose.</p><p>“Adam,” he says. “I remember it now.”</p><p>Whatever grip the past has on Adam dissolves. He blinks, coming back to himself, and then his eyes widen as he takes Ronan in.</p><p>“Was it worse than all the other deaths?”</p><p>“It was me.” And how terrible, how freeing it is to say out loud. This nightmare they’re in, and he’s the cause, and now they both know – “I jumped off the roof. I fucking killed myself.”</p><p>“Oh. Ronan…” Adam’s arms are around him instantly, engulfing him, and Ronan finally gives into the urge to cry.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>tw: references to suicide, depression, substance abuse. <br/>also, Ronan's views on therapy are not my own and if you're ever struggling with your mental health then you definitely shouldn't feel ashamed to reach out for help (some therapists are assholes, but that's besides the point).</p><p>Anyway, hope you guys are all doing ok! This chapter really tested me while I was writing and I hope it wasn't too difficult to read?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I wasn’t thinking – I was drunk off my ass, you saw me – It was…”</p><p>“An accident?” Adam doesn’t intend to sound so disbelieving, but he knows a poor excuse when he hears one. He himself is long practiced in the art of self-delusion – of <em>it’s not as bad as it looks, it could’ve been worse, I got lucky this time.</em></p><p>Ronan pulls away and wipes at his face. He’s stopped crying, but his eyes are bloodshot and Adam’s shirt is soaked all the way through. Adam’s heart gives a painful twinge at the sight. He figures Ronan’s not going to answer the question, but then, voice muffled by his trembling hand, he says, “No.” Then, louder, “It’s not the first time. That I’ve tried, I mean…Called it an accident then, too.”</p><p>
  <em>Accident. Long time ago. I’ve got used to–</em>
</p><p>Ronan climbs to his feet, breathes in, and runs his hands all the way from the bottom of his jaw right to the back of his skull. He holds himself like that for countless seconds, and Adam’s instincts are urging him to <em>do something</em> while his body remains frustratingly inert. His mind is both here and not here. If he stares at one spot for long enough, the lines between <em>here </em>and <em>not here</em> blur and form one hazy picture, Ronan’s night stand becoming Adam’s old bathroom sink. Rusty taps. Shattered mirror. <em>Accident, it was–</em></p><p>“I don’t want that anymore.” Ronan’s voice shatters the illusion. His gaze is hardened now, and there’s a ferociousness behind his eyes that wasn’t there when Adam first found him. “I wouldn’t do that to everyone again. I just – Fuck! How do we fix this?”</p><p>“What makes you think I know?”</p><p>“You know <em>something</em>, don’t give me that shit. What happened with the mirror?”</p><p>Cold adrenaline spikes through Adam’s cells. <em>Danger, danger,</em> his body shouts. <em>Step away from the edge. </em>But there’s no getting away from it. His past followed him into this hell dimension. It’s been stalking him for days, hungry and relentless, demanding of blood. He can’t hold it off forever. They don’t have forever; they’ve got a couple more loops, at best.</p><p>But how does he explain it? What difference will it make, anyway? It’s his shame to deal with, dammit. It’s always been his to deal with.</p><p>“Parrish?”</p><p>“I smashed it,” he says blankly.</p><p>“You said that already.”</p><p>“Well, you asked. That’s what happened.”</p><p>“So you smashed a mirror when you were a kid and the universe goes way out of its way to remind you of it?”</p><p>“God works in mysterious ways, and all.”</p><p>Ronan’s lips twist into a savage sneer. It’s a look that’s as foul as it is familiar, but Adam hasn’t been on the receiving end of it for some time now. <em>You’re ruining this</em>, he thinks, but the realization is clouded by ringing in his ears, clench of nausea in his gut. <em>Accident. Tell them it was an accident. Your own fault, anyway, Adam. You brought this on–</em></p><p>“I know you’re not this stupid,” Ronan spits out, “so what the fuck is your damage?”</p><p>Adam’s mouth forms the shape of a malformed smile. He feels the threads tethering him to<em> here</em> slipping through his fingers one by one. <em>No</em>. He can’t allow himself to lose focus just yet.</p><p>“I need to go back there,” he says, and the words feel thick on his tongue. “Like you did.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He doesn’t want to see them, though. He’s got nothing to say–</p><p>“Go back home? Are you shitting me? We don’t have time for another eight hour road trip, Parrish.”</p><p>“Not home,” he says, or he thinks he says it. He can’t actually tell if the words make it outside his head.</p><p>Adam crosses his arms, blunt nails pressed against inner skin. If there’s no time, he’ll just have to talk to them on the phone, then. He’ll answer his mother’s calls. He can do that. He’s been doing that ever since he left. It shouldn’t be any different. He didn’t need hallucinations or smashed mirrors to remind him to do something he’s always done.</p><p>“If you don’t wanna talk to me, fine. Don’t talk to me. But you need to deal with this somehow.”</p><p>Adam looks up. Nods. Best response he can offer.</p><p>Ronan stares him down unflinching, and it’s unfair that Ronan gets to look so sharp and put-together right now when <em>he’s</em> the one that’s earned the right to be a mess. Adam should be the one comforting him, helping him, but Adam’s foundation is cracked and crumbling. He can barely hold his own weight never mind Ronan’s too.</p><p>There’s a knock on the door before anything further can be said. “I know you’re in there, Lynch,” Blue calls out. “But if you want to keep avoiding your share of the manual labour, by all means!”</p><p>“I’m going to sort my shit out before we’re both killed,” Ronan says. “You should try doing the same.”</p><p>He turns around and heads out the door, shutting it with far less force than Adam anticipated.</p><p>Adam stares at the space Ronan left behind until the room blurs and takes the shape of one much smaller. A cabin. A prison. His only point of refuge in a home made for leaving. The Kid is sat there beside him, both of them shoulder to shoulder and watching the bedroom door with an intensity that their classmates say is creepy and their mother says is <em>just ain’t right</em>.</p><p>There’s a nightmare waiting on the other side, but they invited it this time.</p><p>Adam snaps his eyes shut, inhaling and counting to five once, twice, three times. When he opens them back up, he’s in Ronan’s room again. He lets his arms fall to the side, studiously ignoring the imprints his nails have left behind.</p><p>-</p><p>Leaving for college was supposed to be a victory.</p><p>Adam had thought about it for nights, months, years on end. He’d planned everything down to the last detail, dreams warming him up after his father’s fists knocked him out cold. He was going to walk out that door with his head held high and his damn dignity intact, but not before bringing his father down to size first. He was going to confront his parents with his packed belongings in hand, forcing them to acknowledge everything Adam had endured in that house. So much misery, and for what? Adam was leaving now, and he wouldn’t be back. He was going to become someone worth knowing, but Robert and Marisa Parrish would never get the opportunity to meet him. Was it worth it?</p><p>He never got to ask, though. He never said goodbye at all.</p><p>In reality, Adam’s departure from the double-wide turned from a triumphant march out the door to a cowardly retreat. Plane ticket and hard-earned cash hidden in his locker at work, belongings and his very first cell phone stashed in a thrifted backpack that was just big enough to fit the essentials, confrontations traded in for an early morning escape while his father was still passed out. He rode his bike to the mechanics, emptied his locker, and got a ride to the airport from his boss. Boyd was heading that way anyway, he said. Adam could split him for the gas, if it mattered so much.</p><p>He hadn’t dared to make the call home till he was safely on the other side at Boston International, far enough away that his nightmares couldn’t chase him. His mother had been silent on the other end as Adam explained the situation: College. Scholarship. Full-ride. He wouldn’t be back. Then, when it came her turn to speak, she snorted.</p><p>“Harvard, huh?”</p><p>Harvard, yes. He’d worked himself into the ground, but he’d got there in the end. He hadn’t needed Aglionby after all.</p><p>“That don’t surprise me,” she said, and Adam’s heart leaped to his throat. “You always did think highly of yourself.”</p><p>Adam expected nothing, so he couldn’t be disappointed. He ended the call and took a minute to lean against the wall.</p><p><em>It’s over now</em>, he told himself. <em>New chapter.</em> <em>You’re done with them</em>.</p><p>But old habits die hard, and when his mother called a month later Adam was there to pick up the phone. Who else did he have?</p><p>Now the phone lights up once again in Adam’s hands, and he watches, detached, as it rings and rings and eventually rings out. The music’s too loud. He can’t talk to her in here. But he needs to deal with this somehow. Ronan’s right. They’ll both die for good if he doesn’t.</p><p>Adam died talking to her the first time, too.</p><p>“Adam?” Gansey’s voice makes him look up and around at the half-empty apartment. There is no ignoring it anymore – the hourglass that’s his and Ronan’s lives is running empty, and he still doesn’t know how to break the loop. There’s something he’s still not seeing, a missing puzzle piece just beyond his reach. Why him and Ronan, if saving each other was never a real possibility? Where did the night go wrong, and how do they get back?</p><p>Gansey crosses the room, all jovial smiles that ring starkly false now that Adam’s caught a glimpse of what’s beneath the mask.</p><p>“Where is everyone?” he asks.</p><p>“It’s only pushing eight thirty,” Gansey says. “They’re running fashionably late.”</p><p>Adam looks around the room. He looks back at Gansey, eyes narrowed.</p><p>“Plausible,” he deadpans. “Nothing sinister about that.”</p><p>“Is everything all right?”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t it be all right?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”</p><p>Adam would’ve got pissed around this time, had the loop never occurred. This was pity wrapped up as concern, Gansey fussing over him because Adam stood out as someone who needed to be fussed over.</p><p>He understands things better now, or at least he’s trying to. If Gansey fusses, it’s because he cares. This is what people do when they care.</p><p>He’d had a teacher, once, who cared, only Adam never recognized it. When she took him aside and asked questions, Adam gritted his teeth and lied right through them. Wasn’t hard to. He’d studied the way his mom would flip from cold and detached to bright and giving when the company called for it, like a news anchor coming to life when the cameras started rolling. Adam practiced the language till he, too, became fluent.</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p>“Have you seen Blue or Henry lately?”</p><p>Gansey frowns, but he doesn’t acknowledge the obvious deflection tactic. He glances around, and Adam follows the movement. They should be where they always are, where he’s expecting to see them, but they’re not. That can’t be right. Has the party’s fabric been severely altered by its lack of guests, or is something more sinister to blame? They wouldn’t just disappear in the middle of a loop, would they? Those aren’t the rules.</p><p>But there <em>aren’t</em> any rules, so anything goes. If he takes his eyes off Gansey, will he also–</p><p>“Parrish!”</p><p>Adam jumps out his skin. Henry’s behind him, is where he is.</p><p>“Care for a shot?” Henry asks, holding the familiar glass out to him.</p><p>“That’s okay.”</p><p>“No offence, but I think you might need it. You’re looking troubled as hell tonight, my friend. You tense those shoulders up any more, they’ll be hitting the ceiling.”</p><p>“At least eat something,” Gansey suggests. “That buffet’ll go untouched otherwise.”</p><p>As if on cue, Adam’s stomach rumbles. He’s well overdue a decent meal.</p><p>Adam does an about-turn when he reaches the buffet table, though. The food’s black. Rotten. It wasn’t like that before, was it? Definitely not. Someone would have noticed. Ronan would have noticed.</p><p>If Ronan was here.</p><p>“Gansey?” Adam calls out.</p><p>“He won’t hear you from here,” Blue says, suddenly beside him. She picks up a paper plate and flips it in her hands. “What’s the deal with you, anyway?”</p><p>“Sorry?”</p><p>“You’re acting off. You and Lynch have both been weird as hell from the minute I got here. I figured you slept together and didn’t want Gansey finding out and pulling a Gansey on you, but it’s clearly something worse.”</p><p>Adam stares at her flatly.</p><p>“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t <em>want</em> it to be my business,” she says. “But if you and Lynch are having second thoughts about whatever nefarious crime you’ve committed, Gansey’s going to be upset, and then it<em> will </em>be my business.”</p><p>She picks up one of the mouldy cheese sticks and Adam yells, “Don’t!”</p><p>Blue regards him with a look that’s part amusement, part irritation. “Did you spit on it?”</p><p>“What? No. It’s–” But there’s no point explaining because Blue obviously can’t see it. Of course no one else can see it. That would be too simple.</p><p>He’s not imagining it, though, and it definitely wasn’t like that when the party started. How long, then? And what’s next? He looks around the room, frantic. If the fabric of the universe unravels, where does everything go?</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Gansey asks, approaching with Henry in tow.</p><p>“Would you like a bullet-point list?” Blue says.</p><p>“Don’t touch the food,” Adam warns, and everyone turns on him with narrowed eyes. “Jesus, I’m not – Look, we need to leave this apartment.”</p><p>“Leave?” Henry exclaims. “But the party’s just starting.”</p><p>“I’m not following,” Gansey says. “What’s wrong with the food?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter. Ask me later. Have any of you seen Ronan?”</p><p>“Pshaw! He already left,” Blue says. “I told you, he was acting even weirder than <em>you</em> are.”</p><p>“How so?” Gansey asks.</p><p>“Well, he was nice to me, for starters. And then he said he needed to call <em>Declan</em>.”</p><p>“Oh yeah, they’re friends now, apparently.”</p><p>“What the fuck.”</p><p>“It’s a long story.”</p><p>“Again: what the fuck.”</p><p>“It’s a long story and we don’t have time to hear it. C’mon.” Adam hooks his arm around Gansey’s elbow and shoots him a meaningful look. Gansey gets the picture and reaches for Blue’s hand, who squawks in protest but grabs at Henry’s shirt sleeve nonetheless. Adam leads them through the half-empty apartment, ignoring Gansey’s inquiries into his state of mind and Blue’s complaints about being manhandled and Henry’s gleeful tipsy cheering, all of it background noise to his ever-persistent fear. Missing guests, rotten food, all of it <em>wrong, wrong wrong</em>. This apartment’s a minefield; if he leaves any of them behind, they might not be here to come back to.</p><p>By the time they reach the death-trap stairs their group has become a whole damn parade. Henry and the hangers on are doing the conga, of all things, which is sure to get all of them killed in record time. They’d probably deserve it, too.</p><p>“This is the tough part,” Adam warns. “We need to be careful going down these stairs.”</p><p>“You know there’s an elevator right there, don’t you?” Blue points out.</p><p>“We are not going near that elevator.”</p><p>“First the cheese, now the elevator. What don’t you have a problem with?”</p><p>“Adam,” Gansey says gently. “I’m not sure what this is, but don’t you think–”</p><p>“It’s a scavenger hunt,” he lies smoothly. “Your gift’s at the end of the rainbow, man.”</p><p>“I – Okay. But you know I said there was no need to bother with gifts. I did tell you that, didn’t I?”</p><p>“You told me all about your money anxieties and martyr syndrome, yes. I made a judgement call to ignore you.”</p><p>Blue bursts out laughing. “Seriously, what is <em>wrong </em>with you tonight?”</p><p>Single file’s too risky. All it’ll take is one person tripping up to send the whole crew toppling like dominoes. Is it too late to take the fire escape? Are they safer on the fire escape? Are they safe anywhere?</p><p>Adam should know what to do. This is what he’s been training for, after all. His life’s been one long lesson in harm reduction.</p><p>“You’re really worried about these stairs, huh?”</p><p>Adam blinks. When he turns around, Gansey and Blue are both watching him with matching curious expressions. He could downplay the stakes, but what’s the point? If he’s dying, he owes it to them to be honest one last time.</p><p>“I’ve had some close calls,” he admits. “Tripped up a time or two.”</p><p>“Well, how about we form a barricade?” Gansey suggests. “You grasp that bannister, Henry grasps the other, we each grasp each other.”</p><p>“That’s a lot of grasping going on there.” Blue smiles slyly.</p><p>“Good God, not like that. Nothing sexual.”</p><p>Henry, somewhere behind them, gasps. “Did you just say you’re bisexual?”</p><p>“Great idea, Gansey,” Adam says.</p><p>“Was that sarcasm? I can never be sure with you.”</p><p>“I mean it. I think that could work.” He grips the bannister with one hand and loops his other arm around Gansey’s. Blue joins on with a roll of her eyes and beckons Henry with her free hand.</p><p>“Just so you know, I don’t know what this is,” Henry announces, accepting Blue’s hand with a flourish. “But I’m not opposed.”</p><p>Adam waits until everyone’s joined limb to limb and then says, “Ready? On three–”</p><p>Blue shouts, “You were supposed to be the reasonable one, Adam!”</p><p>“Two–”</p><p>Gansey shouts, “Excelsior!”</p><p>“One–”</p><p>Henry shouts, “Whoop whoop, Gansey Boy!” and drags them down screaming.</p><p>It’s a struggle, at first. Henry moves faster than everybody else, Blue’s half a foot smaller, and Gansey’s got the coordination skills of a geriatric drunk even though he swears he’s only had half a G&amp;T. There’s also the matter of <em>other people </em>to account for, but Blue’s got that covered. She does her best Ronan impression, showing her teeth and swearing up a storm, which sends one woman scrambling back down to the landing, another apologizing, and one brave man ducking beneath Adam and Gansey’s hands. Adam’s not sure how to feel about being sized up and dubbed the least threatening, but then again, he wouldn’t want to take his chances against Blue either.</p><p>By the time they reach the final set of stairs they’re all seriously out of breath. Blue and Henry shout out curses when they see there’s another set to go, but Gansey just laughs hysterically and says, “Do you think Glendower would have been bested by a set of stairs? Absolutely not. Glendower would have held his head high and descended with honour.”</p><p>“We might make a politician of you yet, Dick Three.”</p><p>When they hit the ground, Adam sighs and breathes in the cool night air. He takes in each of his friends – worn out and bewildered but here with him, god, his<em> friends –</em> and doesn’t fight the smile that’s breaking on his face. What has Adam done to deserve this? Not enough. Nothing could ever be enough, because that’s not how this works. This is a privilege that Adam ought to be grateful for while he still has it, because there’s no guarantee he’ll get to keep it.</p><p>“So, where to next?” Blue asks. “Or was this scavenger hunt all a ploy to escape the fearsome task of socializing?”</p><p>On cue, Gansey’s phone rings, and whatever good feelings Adam had before vanish. That’s what’s next: his return home.</p><p>Gansey listens to whoever’s on the other end and then pulls the phone away, squinting.</p><p>“It’s for you,” he says, nodding at Adam. Adam frowns, but he takes the phone out of Gansey’s outstretched hand. He holds it up to his good ear.</p><p>“Parrish,” Ronan says, no preambles. “We’ve got a problem.”</p><p>Adam glances at his friends before taking a few steps further out of earshot.</p><p>“Is it the food?”</p><p>“So the food’s rotting to shit where you are too. Good to know.”</p><p>Adam considers the possibilities. He says, “I might have a theory about that.”</p><p>“You might?”</p><p>“Still needs testing,” he admits. He waits for a question or a snarky response, but Ronan’s gone silent. Is he angry with Adam? Disappointed? Or maybe he’s not thinking about Adam and their non-fight at all. Maybe he’s distracted. He <em>did </em>say he was going to sort his shit out, didn’t he? “Where are you, anyway?”</p><p>“You know that convenience store a few blocks away?”</p><p>“The one you got us shot in?”</p><p>“The one <em>you</em> got us shot in, shithead.”</p><p>Adam scoffs, but he doesn’t argue the point. “We’ll meet you there in five, okay?”</p><p>“We?”</p><p>“I couldn’t just leave everyone at the party.”</p><p>“Fuck, Parrish. Did you freak out and drag the whole party onto the street?”</p><p>“Who do you take me for, Florence Nightingale? I dragged our friends onto the street.”</p><p>Ronan barks out a laugh, sharp and starkly familiar, and Adam lets out a sigh of relief. <em>Not ruined</em>, he thinks. <em>I haven’t ruined us just yet.</em> “All right, asshole, I’ll see you in five.”</p><p>Adam hands the phone back to Gansey, ignoring the pointed look he gets in return. He turns to Henry and Blue, who are in the middle of giving each other piggybacks.</p><p>“Ready? It’s this way,” he says, and nods to the left.</p><p>-</p><p>The store is starkly lit and without a fresh piece of fruit in sight.</p><p>“Jesus,” Adam says, taking in the rows and rows of rotten oranges and apples, bananas and pineapples. No flies, though, and no second glances from anyone besides Ronan and him. In fact, their friends walked right on by them.</p><p>Adam picks up one of the apples and weighs it in his hand. He’d thought about it while making his way down the stairs. The food looks bad to them, sure, but not to the others. It’s still fine to eat, at least if you’re Blue. It’s almost as if him and Ronan are perceiving time differently from everybody else, the lines between past, present and future blurred. As if they’re on the outside looking in.</p><p>And if the door opened to let them out, there must be a way back inside.</p><p>“Care to share with the class?” Ronan prompts.</p><p>“I need a knife. Or anything sharp I can cut this with.”</p><p>Ronan looks between Adam and the fruit, and Adam raises his head in challenge. But Ronan doesn’t say anything. He snatches the apple from Adam’s hands and walks away. What the hell?</p><p>Adam follows him down the aisle, all the way over to the front desk. The man at the till looks up from his cell phone and immediately grins when he catches sight of them.</p><p>“Ronan!” he greets merrily. “And Ronan’s friend!”</p><p>“Rashid, this is Adam. Adam, Rashid.” At Adam’s inquisitive look, he says, “You losers kept me waiting long enough. Me and Rashid got to know each other.”</p><p>“You know he comes in here all the time, never says a word to me,” Rashid says, eyes already returning to his phone. “But in he comes tonight, whole new man. Not such a bastard anymore, eh.”</p><p>“Hey, you watch that language, fucker. You wanna get past level 62 or not?”</p><p>“Level 62 in what?” Adam asks.</p><p>Rashid groans and slaps his phone down on the counter. “I lost again,” he says glumly.</p><p>“Level 62 in <em>that</em>,” Ronan says. “The fucking’s devil’s game.”</p><p>“Rotten game,” Rashid agrees. “But terribly addictive.”</p><p>“My little brother got me into it.”</p><p>“My daughter got me into it.”</p><p>“Screw them, right?” Ronan picks the phone up.</p><p>They pay for the apple, and Adam watches with wonder as Ronan completes the level before handing the phone back to Rashid. It’s not that Adam’s surprised, because he’s seen enough of Ronan now to understand that this gruff form of kindness is integral to who he is. He’s both the asshole that looked down on Adam before ever getting to know him and the guy that nursed a baby bird back to health. He’s a study in contradictions, forever challenging people to learn him all over again, and Adam wants to be privy to every last hidden edge.</p><p>Trust goes both ways, though. He can’t ask to know Ronan if he won’t give himself in return.</p><p>“What’s the look about?” Ronan says, when they’ve returned to the empty aisle. “We got the poor bastard shot. I figured I owed him one.”</p><p>Adam kisses him. It’s a desperate, rushed thing, his hands clutched aroundthe back of Ronan’s head. <em>I want this</em>, he says with his lips pressed to Ronan’s. <em>I’m trying. I’m sorry. Please wait for me. </em></p><p>When he pulls away, Ronan’s eyes are bright. His hand’s clutched tightly in the hem of Adam’s shirt and Adam moves one of his own hands down to link their fingers together. He never thought he’d want someone else this close, but he wants to be known. He wants all the privileges that come with being awake, even if it means showing his own hand.</p><p>“Sargent’s got a switch-blade,” Ronan says, holding the apple up in his free hand. “I’ll get her to hand it over.”</p><p>“You’re kidding, right? Blue has been carrying a switch-blade around this whole time?”</p><p>“She’s lethal with it,” Ronan warns. “I wouldn’t question her if I was you.”</p><p> Adam’s phone buzzes in his pocket, a reminder to not get too comfortable. He pulls it out and says, faintly, “I need to take this.”</p><p>Ronan’s thumb smooths over his. He presses the softest of kisses to Adam’s good ear, and then he lets Adam go.</p><p>“Adam? That you?”</p><p>Adam gazes at the rotten fruit, wonders if his insides look the same. Talking to his parents always did make him feel like he was shrivelling up inside.</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p>“How come you’re the one that always makes these calls?”</p><p>There’s a lull on the other end. He can picture her, eyebrows furrowed, as her mind scrambles to supply a response. Back when he lived in the trailer, Adam’s biggest fear was growing up to be just like his father. He’d vowed never to drink, or have kids, or become complacent with a life he didn’t want, lest his his father’s monster blood reveal itself and bring the roof down. But now, with some distance between them, Adam realizes he should’ve been just as worried about turning out like the other Parrish. So much of himself can be traced back to his mother, after all – those same wary mannerisms, the instinct to detach, the tendency to move through the world like you aren’t inhabiting it.</p><p>He’d taken all his cues from her, but she’d never been his friend. She only calls now because Adam’s finally got something to offer.</p><p>“What’s that?” she says.</p><p>“He’s the one that gets you to do this,” Adam says. “Why doesn’t he do it himself?”</p><p>“Your father’s sick.”</p><p>“With the drink, you mean.”</p><p>“With his back.”</p><p>“Because he was drinking.”</p><p>“Don’t act like you know all there is to know when you couldn’t spare us a single visit in years.”</p><p>Adam asks, masochistically, “Does Dad want me to visit?”</p><p>“That’s not what I said.”</p><p>“Why don’t you give the phone to him,” he suggests. “I wanna know how he’s doing.”</p><p>“I ain’t got time for your games, Adam,” she says. “It’s late. I called for–”</p><p>“I sent it.” There’s a question building on his tongue, one he’s always held off from asking. Couldn’t bring himself to speak up. Couldn’t bear to know he was being lied to, that he’d allowed himself to be taken advantage of out of some twisted sense of solidarity. So he let it go. But he’s not got time to keep letting it go.</p><p>“Where does it all go, anyway?” he asks. “The money.”</p><p>The line goes quiet, and Adam knows he’s got his answer. He always knew, really. Why would his father care about getting back to work when he had his wife out labouring to pay the bills and his son working overtime to provide a steady booze supply?</p><p>His<em> stupid</em> son.</p><p>“Was there even an accident at all? Or did he get you to make that up too?”</p><p>“How dare you. You think I got time to sit around here making up lies all day?”</p><p>“So there was an accident, but it wasn’t as bad as you made it out to be.”</p><p>“Listen to yourself. We’re up to our necks in it here and you don’t give a damn,” she says. “It’s selfish is what it is, Adam. You swan off to that fancy college without telling a damn soul, you take everything with you–”</p><p>“I took the money I earned.”</p><p>“You took from the family,” she says. “You lived under our roof nineteen years, you don’t think you oughtta lend a hand every once in a while?”</p><p>Adam could laugh. He could scream. He feels hollow, his insides shrivelled up like the rotten fruit.</p><p>He let them hurt him for nineteen years, and for eighteen months he’s let them steal from him too, and if she asked him nice enough he might even let it continue. He can say no to everybody, but he never learned how to say no to them.</p><p>On the other line, his mother keeps talking. She’s defending herself now, turning the blame onto Adam. He’s a bad son, selfish, always thought he was too good to pay his dues. All Adam hears is <em>your fault, your fault, your fault.</em> Your fault for talking back, your fault for being in the room when you saw the state he was in, your fault for being here at all.</p><p>And this time it truly is his fault, for answering the door to the wolf in the first place.</p><p>There’s a piercing ringing sound in his good ear. When he looks up, the Kid is standing at the top of the aisle.</p><p>Adam stares at him, feeling the edges of his vision begin to blur. He takes a slow step forward, then another, setting his phone down on the closest shelf with a trembling hand. The Kid doesn’t come closer, or speak, or make any movement at all. He just watches Adam with that frightening dull-eyed gaze, bruised cheek horrifically stark under the harsh fluorescents.</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p>“Is he–?”</p><p>“Oh, shit.”</p><p>What does he want from Adam? Adam spoke to their mom. He confronted her. What else is Adam supposed to do, apologize to him?</p><p>“Why should I?” he says, edging closer. “It’s as much your fault as it is mine.”</p><p>The Kid opens his mouth, blood dribbling out.</p><p>Adam staggers back. Loses his footing altogether, slip-sliding against the linoleum, back hitting a solid force.</p><p>“Hey, you’re fine, c’mon,” Ronan says. “I got Blue to cut the apple open. You know the rot’s only on the outside? The fuck is that about?”</p><p>“Ronan, is he–?”</p><p>“He’s fine. He’s just – shit. We’re dying again. <em>Fuck this</em>.”</p><p>The blood’s coming from everywhere now, the Kid’s mouth, his ears, his nose. Rot on the inside making its way back out. Adam convulses and coughs his own rot up too, but there’s far too much. He’s choking on it…</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan has questions, predictably.</p><p>“We were close,” he insists, after Adam’s both awake and alert. It’s already after eight; Ronan only woke up this time as the party started. “We were definitely close. I don’t know what the fuck else I’m supposed to do here, Parrish.”</p><p>“You said the fruit was ripe inside when you cut it?”</p><p>“What’s that prove, Einstein?”</p><p>“Time works differently here,” Adam says. “There are no borders between past and future and present. So we know how the night goes, and we see the food simultaneously how it was and how it will be–”</p><p>“But nobody else does,” Ronan finishes. “Because they’re not stuck in the same hell dimension we are.”</p><p>“If you think of the universe as four-dimensional, with the usual three spatial dimensions plus time, then you can see how all of space-time could theoretically be contained inside one 4D block. But time as experience it in the block only moves forward. It’s always linear.”</p><p>“So you’re saying that when we fell into the loop, we moved outside the block.”</p><p>“Right,” Adam says. “And I think I know why. These loops, they’re like a program that keeps crashing on a computer. Or a level on a game you can’t complete. I thought the trick was to help each other survive the loops, but the loops are only a symptom of the bug itself. When the program is running smoothly, we don’t die at all.”</p><p>“That’s well and good,” Ronan says, “but we already did.”</p><p>“No we didn’t, because everything that’s happened still needs to happen. We just need to get back inside the block, to the beginning of this night, and rewrite the code.”</p><p>“Jesus Mary shitting Christ.” Ronan tips his head up to the ceiling. “This physics shit is melting my brain.”</p><p>“You speak fluent Latin,” Adam says. “If you wanted me to think you were stupid, you should’ve worked harder at it.”</p><p>“There’s a world of difference between learning another language and keeping up with this sci-fi mumbo jumbo bullshit.” Ronan turns toward him a beat later. “Hey, wait, did you just call me smart?”</p><p>“Saddened to break the news: you’re a nerd.”</p><p>Ronan nudges his shoulder, and Adam faintly smiles. He can almost pretend everything’s okay when it’s just the two of them in the here and now. No pasts to haunt them, no futures to preserve. Ronan’s laughing, so everything must be good now. There’s nothing else to fix.</p><p>Nice dream.</p><p>“I don’t know how we get back,” he admits. “I keep running through everything from that first night. I think there must’ve been a moment before the deaths when things really went off track and we fell into the loop. Like, the bug that made the whole system crash.”</p><p>“I thought the bug <em>was</em> the deaths.”</p><p>“No, those are just a by-product. It’s whatever we did that led to the deaths.”</p><p>“The fight,” Ronan says immediately.</p><p>“You being an asshole didn’t get me hit by a car.”</p><p>“But it upset you, right? If I wasn’t too busy being a self-destructive asshole, I could’ve helped you pull that stick out your ass and kept you at the party.”</p><p>Adam hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes a startling amount of sense. If he hadn’t left early, licking his wounds, would he have given into the impulse to call his mom? Would he have walked right out into open traffic without a care in the world?</p><p>But that means the reverse is true, too. That means–</p><p>“And if I wasn’t so determined to keep myself apart from everyone, I could’ve realized you were struggling and done something about it.”</p><p>“We weren’t friends. I wouldn’t have expected you to do anything.”</p><p>“But you might’ve stuck around,” he says, “if I wasn’t a dick to you.”</p><p>What had he said to Ronan that first night? Something about squandering opportunities?</p><p>And being a stowaway, shit. He thought Ronan had been the one to start a fight with him for no reason, but had it really been him? He’d hit Ronan’s sore spot without even trying, and Ronan had launched straight for the kill shot in return.</p><p>“So that’s when we fell into the loop,” Ronan says. “Doesn’t explain how we climb back out. We already tried the recreation tactic, and look where that got us.”</p><p>They’d recreated Ronan’s night, arguments and all. Of course it got them nowhere.</p><p>Adam sees, now, the piece he’s been missing, how all their attempts to end the loop were doomed from the start. Going back there without knowing where they went wrong would’ve only led to them repeating the same mistakes. He needed to know <em>what</em> he was saving Ronan from…and Ronan needs that too.</p><p>“It’s like you said.” He works to keep his voice neutral. “We have to sort our shit out.”</p><p>Adam’s never told anyone, is the thing. He’s never dared to. He can barely think the words himself.</p><p>“I’ve been doing that,” Ronan says. “Or trying to, at least.”</p><p>“I know. It’s not just you, though.” He breathes in and then out, counting to five in between. To talk about it at all is the worst offence, one his mind recoils from. It was an accident, a family matter, no need to dramatise or get anyone else involved. But this is <em>Ronan, </em>and Adam trusts him. That has to be enough.</p><p>“That night, when I died, it’s my fault I got hit,” he says. “I never looked when I crossed the street. My mom…talking to her is hard. Because of how things were, before. It wasn’t good.”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t interrupt, just sits there patiently and listens. Adam steels himself for the next part, wipes the emotion from his voice. Just the facts, that’s all Ronan needs to hear.</p><p>“My father could get violent sometimes. Drinking problem. Mom never intervened. There was…When I was thirteen, same age as the Kid I keep seeing, that’s when the accident happened. I was standing too close to the stairs when he hit me. Went down, hit my head on the railing. Lost the hearing in that ear.” Adam tries to laugh. Fails miserably. “Worked out all right in the end, though. Motivated me to get here.”</p><p>They’d said that to him in so many words the first time they called. Well, his mother did, but Adam knows who she got the idea from. Adam was at his fancy college, he had it made now, so how could he complain about his lot in life? It was awfully rich of him to act hard done by when a lesser parent would’ve kicked him to the curb years before. And if his rotten childhood is what encouraged him to try for so much, didn’t he owe his success to them?</p><p>
  <em>Should be counting yourself lucky, Adam. </em>
</p><p>“Jesus.” Ronan’s face is all naked horror. “And you still talk to them?”</p><p>“Just my mom.”</p><p>“Who did jack shit to help you.”</p><p>“What could she have done?” But Adam already knows the answer to that. He only feels the need to object because it’s coming from Ronan; even now, hundreds of miles away, he can’t shake the urge to defend them from outsiders. <em>Accident, could’ve been worse. My fault, really.</em></p><p>“She could’ve left and took you with her, for starters.”</p><p>“And gone where? With what money? That’s not how life works, Ronan. It’s not productive to think of it like that.”</p><p>Ronan must see he’s fighting a losing battle, because his face falls and all the anger drains out of him. He reaches out, but Adam shifts out of the way. Adam can hardly stand to look at him, shame thick in his throat. This is his burden to deal with. It’s always been his.</p><p>Ronan’s hand drops down in the space between them. Adam gives it a minute, want and fear crashing one another, before the former wins out. He links their pinkies together, just enough contact to keep him here in this room and not back in his tangled head.</p><p>“They hurt you,” Ronan says, like it’s that simple. And maybe it is, to someone on the outside. “They don’t deserve to talk to you.”</p><p>Maybe that’s true, too, but how could Adam think of it that way? For twenty years, they were the only people he had.</p><p>“They didn’t deserve you at all.”</p><p>“That’s what they said too,” Adam jokes. It doesn’t land, judging by the silence.</p><p>“That’s bullshit. You know that’s bullshit, right?”</p><p>He shrugs, says, “Sure,” because that’s what Ronan wants to hear.</p><p>Ronan opens his mouth then shuts it just as fast. Adam can predict what he would’ve said, though. He would’ve told Adam he deserved better. He would’ve told Adam it wasn’t his fault.</p><p>“I’m dealing with it,” Adam cuts in. He stands up. He needs space, air, room to breathe and think without an audience. “Like you said, right? Telling you is part of that.”</p><p>“Adam–”</p><p>“It’s going to work this time. We’ve done everything right.”</p><p>“What about the Kid, then? Where does he fit into this?”</p><p>Adam pictures him, blood trickling from his mouth, his ears, his nose–</p><p>“I’m dealing with that, too,” he says, and it’s not a lie if he tells himself he believes it.</p><p>-</p><p>Adam stops short when he reaches the end of the hallway.</p><p>The music’s still playing, but there’s no one here except Gansey.</p><p>“Fuck,” Ronan breathes out beside him. Gansey looks up and grins at them. He’s holding a glass in one hand, a rotten pizza slice in the other. He finishes off the crust and then saunters over.</p><p>“Where’s Blue?” Adam asks, even though he knows.</p><p>“Oh, you know. She’s around somewhere.” Gansey gestures vaguely around the room.</p><p>“And Henry?”</p><p>“What about Henry?”</p><p>“Shit,” Ronan says. “I need to find Declan.” He gives Adam one last frantic look, the meaning of it as clear as if he’d said the words themselves. <em>Deal with it. </em>Then he pats Gansey on the shoulder, says, “See you, man,” and rushes out of the apartment.</p><p>Gansey hardly reacts. He looks unfazed by everything, and that’s the most frightening thing of all.</p><p>Adam slams his back against the wall and runs his hands through his hair. He’s failing them. Adam’s bug is rooted so deep inside him, buried beneath layers of rot. It was naive to think he could ever carve it out. Years of conditioning can’t be undone in one night.</p><p>He drops down on the floor and pulls his knees into his chest. Selfish, that’s what he is. Can’t do enough, can’t get this right, not even for Ronan. Not even when Ronan’s tried hard for him.</p><p>He feels his heart rate pick up, breaths coming quicker and quicker until he can hardly get the air into his lungs. What can he do? What hasn’t he done? He told Ronan, he spoke to them, and now almost everyone is gone, and there isn’t enough time, and they’re going to die again, both of them, because of <em>him</em>–</p><p>Because he’s never grown out of that trailer, not really. He’s still that frightened, angry kid.</p><p>“Adam?”</p><p>He shakes his head, doesn’t dare look up. <em>Fine, I’m fine, don’t bother me,</em> only he’s not fine at all. He’s hot, dizzy. His limbs feel numb. He thinks he must be dying again, and if he looks up the Kid will be right there, smiling despite the blood.</p><p>“Hey, you’re okay,” Gansey says, and he’s crouched beside Adam now. “You’re having a panic attack, I think. Have you had one before?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” He recognizes the sensations, though, from the last time in Gansey’s room. “I think so.”</p><p>“Any idea what triggered this one?”</p><p>Adam shrugs. Dying, fear of dying, watching his younger self dying. There’s a lot of options to choose from, surprisingly.</p><p>“That’s okay. You’re fine. It’ll pass, but I need you to concentrate on breathing with me. Okay?”</p><p>Gansey’s voice is steady and so matter of fact that Adam is helpless to disagree. Gansey sucks in a breath, and Adam copies him. Gansey counts down before exhaling, and Adam does the same. He lets Gansey guide him through it, grounding him when the panic threatens to overwhelm him again. They count and breathe, count and breathe, until there are no thoughts left.</p><p>“Feeling better?” Gansey asks him some time later, when his pulse has returned to normal. He nods, still afraid to use his voice. “Just wait there. I’ll get you a drink, okay?”</p><p>The shame kicks in once Gansey’s no longer sitting beside him. This is everything he’s fought so hard to keep hidden. He wanted Gansey to look at him and see a man that was his equal, not some scared, helpless fool with a mind that rebels against him.</p><p>“Here.” Gansey sits down cross-legged in front of him and passes over a glass of water. Adam drinks it all down in one desperate gulp. “Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>Gansey doesn’t miss a beat. “Do you want me to keep talking?”</p><p>“You can tell one of your Glendower stories, if you’d like,” Adam suggests, just to watch his friend’s face light up.</p><p>“You don’t have to humour me.”</p><p>“I’m not. I like listening to them.”</p><p>So Gansey starts talking in his grand Virginian accent. He has the perfect voice for narrating stories, calm and clear and rich with feeling, and as he gets into the Battle of Bryn Glas Adam feels his stupor begin to lift.</p><p>“How do you know so much?” he asks, after.</p><p>“It’s been a point of interest for some time now,” Gansey says. “Helen calls it an obsession.”</p><p>“I meant the panic attacks. How did you know what to do?”</p><p>“Oh.” Gansey reaches for his glass of whisky and takes a careful sip. “Well, I have some experience with them, you could say.”</p><p>Because of the bee sting, right. Gansey is no stranger to fear of dying.</p><p>“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he says. “I know afterwards it can feel–”</p><p>“Humiliating? Like I just made a huge drama over nothing?”</p><p>“It wasn’t nothing.”</p><p>“It wasn’t real, either.”</p><p>“You experienced it,” Gansey insists. “That makes it real.”</p><p>Adam looks down at the floor. “Right. Sorry.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Gansey says. “Listen, I don’t mean to pry–”</p><p>“Famous last words of everyone who pries.”</p><p>“It helps, sometimes, to talk. That’s all I’m trying to say.”</p><p>Adam’s not about to spill his guts twice in one night. Bad enough Gansey was here to see him in this state at all.</p><p>Although, that’s not quite true. He’s grateful he wasn’t alone this time. It was worse when he had to deal with this alone.</p><p>“Thanks,” he says, “for being cool about this.”</p><p>“No need to thank me. I did what any good friend would do.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Adam laughs. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t exactly have many of those.”</p><p>Gansey’s face switches to its sad puppy look, and Adam regrets his choice of words.</p><p>“I’m not complaining or anything. It’s better this way.”</p><p>“Surely you don’t believe that.”</p><p>“I don’t make it easy for people to like me, Gansey. That’s how I ended up here.”</p><p>Gansey’s brows lift up at that. Whatever, Adam’s not going to clarify. They’re the only guests at a party meant for hundreds – goes without saying that nothing about this situation is normal. The whole room feels haunted.</p><p>“That’s not true,” Gansey says. “<em>I </em>like you.”</p><p>“Because you see the good in people and ignore the rest.”</p><p>“I see what’s there.” There’s no room for argument. It’s presented as a fact, one held with conviction, and Adam doesn’t believe in many things but he does believe in Gansey. “Perhaps it’s you who can’t see clearly, Adam.”</p><p>Then, before Adam can protest, Gansey stands up. The air in the room shifts, coldness replacing the suffocating warmth of before. When Adam looks up, he’s startled to see that Gansey doesn’t look like Gansey at all. His eyes have lost their bright sheen. His smile’s an eerie facsimile. He is untouchable now, spectral, and when Adam follows after him he moves further and further out of reach.</p><p>“Gansey?”</p><p>“I have to go,” he says.</p><p>“No you don’t. What the hell is this? <em>Gansey</em>–”</p><p>“You know.”</p><p>That’s not true; Adam doesn’t know anything. He knows even less than before.</p><p>“Come with me,” he says. “We can find Ronan–”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>.”</p><p>“This part’s on you.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” Adam shouts, but Gansey’s turning his back on him now. He nods his head in time with the music from Henry’s playlist as he drifts towards the hallway.</p><p>“I thought you wanted to help me!”</p><p>“You don’t need me.”</p><p>“Not true,” he says, choking on the words. He <em>wanted</em> it to be. He’s got by for so long on his own that he thought that was how it needed to be, but he was wrong. He was so wrong. What he did before, that wasn’t living. It was surviving, and now that he’s had a taste of something more he knows he can’t go back.</p><p>Adam sprints after him, down the darkened hallway, but Gansey’s already at the bedroom door. His hand curls around the handle, and Adam knows instinctively that if he goes in there he’ll never come back out.</p><p>“Please don’t do this.”</p><p>“Talk to him,” Gansey says. “You’ll find your way back.”</p><p>He opens the door and disappears. Leaves Adam behind at the slow disco for one.</p><p>There’s only one <em>him</em> that he could be referring to, but if Adam’s going to hold the conversation it’ll have to be on his terms.</p><p>-</p><p>“You sure I can’t get you anything else?”</p><p>“Just a coffee, thanks,” Adam says. The waitress waits a beat before smiling and heading back towards the kitchen.</p><p>He’s at Ronan’s diner. The one Ronan brought him to, that is, with its offensively bright deco and hipster patrons. If this conversation has to happen then Adam should get to choose the location, and why shouldn’t he pick some place that would’ve annoyed him even more at thirteen than it does right now? It’s not like he had a say any of the other times he was ambushed.</p><p>Ronan never answered his calls, and Adam can only hope it’s because he’s busy resolving his own stray threads. He has to hope they’re on the same page here, because there’s no room to mess this up.</p><p>The bell jingles as the door opens, and Adam picks up one of the menus to appear busy. He skim reads the specials, mind furiously planning ahead, and it’s only when someone coughs beside him that Adam realizes the latest patron has headed straight for his table.</p><p>“Sorry to bother you.” It’s a woman, early thirties at the oldest. She nods towards his watch and says, “You wouldn’t happen to have the time, would you?”</p><p>“Oh. Sure. It’s 10:13,” he reads off.</p><p>“That’s great, thank you.” She smiles kindly, first at Adam and then at the booth across from him. When Adam follows her gaze, he’s met with the sight of the Kid looking back. The Kid nods at her with polite deference and then fiddles with the watch on his wrist. It’s the same one Adam’s wearing on his.</p><p>“So they can see you now,” Adam says, once the woman’s taken her leave.</p><p>“They can see what you want them to see,” the Kid says.</p><p>“Then why didn’t they see you before?”</p><p>The Kid shoots Adam a bored look that’s innately familiar to him. <em>Don’t make me spell it out for you. </em></p><p>Adam was no less of a smartass at thirteen than he is today.</p><p>“Coffee?” The waitress reappears, steaming mug in hand.</p><p>“That’s great, thanks.”</p><p>She sets the drink on the table, doing a double take when she notices the Kid. The Kid turns on the charm real quick, smiling in a manner that leaves no space for questions. <em>Everything’s good. Nothing to see here</em>. It makes Adam’s stomach twist unpleasantly. What an excellent liar he’s always been.</p><p>“I hate the smell of coffee,” the Kid says, watching intently as Adam takes a sip.</p><p>“I know you do.”</p><p>“I only drink it when there’s something I’m struggling to do.”</p><p>“I know that. I know everything about you.”</p><p>“Not everything.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“There’s a lot you’ve never seen clearly.”</p><p>Those words, near identical to the ones Gansey expressed an hour before, send chills down Adam’s spine. He leans forward and asks, “What is this, exactly?”</p><p>“Don’t you know?”</p><p>“You want an apology from me.”</p><p>The Kid tilts his head, blinks his large eyes slowly.</p><p>“Do you have something to be sorry for?”</p><p>“Are you only allowed to answer questions with more questions?”</p><p>The Kid says nothing, just carries on staring with those unsettling eyes. <em>Just ain’t right</em>, their mother would always say, and Adam could never be sure if she was talking about his facial expressions or just him in general.</p><p>“I’m sorry I let it continue,” Adam says, folding first. “Is that what you came here for?”</p><p>“Whose fault do you think that was?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Whose fault do you think that was?”</p><p>Adam frowns. He takes another gulp of coffee, allowing it to burn his tongue. His fault for not speaking up, for lying through his teeth, for rejecting every offer of help that came around. But he can’t say that to the Kid; he’s just a kid, after all.</p><p>Adam hadn’t felt like a kid at thirteen. He’d been older than his years, fuelled by grim determination and the promise of a future where he was untouchable. He’d figured everybody saw the same thing when they looked his way, but all Adam sees now are tired eyes peeking out of a young, freshly-bruised face. How can he blame this kid for anything? He made his best shot with the shitty hand he was dealt.</p><p>His phone buzzes. Adam pulls it out and then glances at the Kid.</p><p>“Aren’t you gonna answer that?” he asks.</p><p>“It’s Mom.”</p><p>“Don’t you have something to say to her?”</p><p>Does he? Adam looks at the phone, pulse rattling. <em>They hurt you. They don’t deserve to talk to you.</em></p><p>Adam picks up.</p><p>“Adam? That you?”</p><p>The Kid’s gone back to messing around with his watch strap. Adam’s on his own for this one, then.</p><p>“It’s me,” he says.</p><p>“Been calling for days. You didn’t pick up.”</p><p>“I didn’t want to talk to you.”</p><p>He’s never said that before. He hears the faint whoosh of air on the other line, and then, voice placid, his mother says, “Huh.”</p><p>“It was an accident, the first time,” he says. “I shouldn’t have picked up. But then I just kept doing it. I don’t think you can call it an accident, after the first couple times. That’s you making a choice.”</p><p>“Adam, I don’t have time for–”</p><p>“I sent the cheque out for this month but I’m not sending any more. You can stop calling this number, now.”</p><p>“That’s–”</p><p>“Selfish? Yeah.” He grips the tabletop with his free hand, steadying himself as he says, “I can’t hear out of my left ear, Mom. Dad chose to do that.”</p><p>“That had nothing to do with me,” she hisses.</p><p>“And I don’t blame you for it. But you could’ve took my side, once in a while. Instead you chose him.”</p><p>“Christ, would you listen to yourself. ‘Took your side,’ like it was ever that simple. You never needed me, you made that damn clear when you walked out that door on us.”</p><p>Adam shakes his head. There are so many more things he could say, so much he wishes he could say to his father specifically, and maybe one day he will. That’s not what he needs right now, though. What he needs is to cut the cord, quick and painless, so he can actually sort through all the damage they’ve left him with. He has people in his life that matter now, people on his side. If he asked them for it, they’d help.</p><p>“I’m sorry you see it that way, Mom.”</p><p>“Adam–”</p><p>“If you call this number again, I’ll have to block you.”</p><p>“Adam, listen to me–”</p><p>He hangs up.</p><p>He feels light, dizzy, like he might float away at any second. He just did that. How could he do that? It was selfish, monstrous of him.</p><p>He did what he had to.</p><p>“Fuck,” he says. He slaps the phone down on the table, finishes his coffee. He tries to speak.</p><p>Something’s clawing its way up his throat.</p><p>Adam coughs loud enough to draw the attention of the nearest patrons. It’s sharp, lodged tight in his windpipe. He can’t breathe. <em>No.</em> </p><p>He chokes, hands flailing around for his phone. The coffee mug crashes at his feet instead. His eyes meet the Kid’s, but there’s nothing there, no shock, no fear, just the usual horror movie kid blankness.</p><p>“What’s–?” he tries to ask, but he can’t get the rest of the sentence out.</p><p>Adam chokes and chokes and feels that thing scraping its way up his throat, slicing through the cartilage. He coughs the blood all over the table, droplets splattering over the Kid’s passive face. Someone, possibly the waitress, screams.</p><p>“You can’t feel bad about it now,” the Kid says. “We did what we had to.”</p><p>It’s right there, now, at the back of his throat. Adam slips his hand inside his mouth and tries to reach for it. <em>There</em>. He pulls it out, the last bloodied piece of the puzzle. It’s a glass shard, remnants from his broken mirror.</p><p><em>His fault</em>. He’d been angry that day. Always was. Rage nestled, dormant, in his gut, ready to take him over at inopportune moments, and that day he’d felt especially hopeless. It had been a whole week with no reprieve, his father mad with the world and therefore mad with his son. A whole week of making up excuses for the limp in his step, for his inability to concentrate, for the homework he’d been prevented from completing. School, once Adam’s harbour, was becoming a place of dread, and if he couldn’t walk this balancing rope he’d never escape at all.</p><p>So he smashed the mirror. Hadn’t meant to, honest. It’d been an accident, one his brain could not remember making. And he’d paid for it with his father’s whisky-scented breath in his face, his father’s fist meeting his skin, Adam’s foot slipping off the edge of the stair.</p><p>Not an accident. It had never been an accident.</p><p>Adam slips off the seat, body slamming against the floor. He’s dying again, only he hardly feels the pain. His body convulses, bloodied throat still choking up blood, but he’s <em>alone, alone, alone</em>, finally free of it now. Absolved.</p><p>His eyes catch on the neon lights as bodies swarm around him. He did what he had to.</p><p>He doesn’t regret it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>tw: abuse, panic attacks, lots of internalized victim blaming</p><p>sorry about the wait for this one! i hope the word count made up for it? &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's the penultimate chapter, aaaah!</p><p>Massive thanks to everyone that's made it this far. Your support means the absolute world to me; I don't know if I ever would've finished this if not for all the lovely comments, kudos etc. </p><p>This is the very first chapter I planned out and it's the main reason I wanted to write this story (if you've seen the show then you'll know what's coming) so I really hope it lives up to everyone's expectations. If you make it to the end then I would LOVE to hear what you think! </p><p>Also, if you'd like a song to go along with this chapter then check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exd16QR88EQ"> alone by haelos </a>.  I've listened to it nonstop while writing the whole story, but it fits this chapter specifically.</p><p>Love you all! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ronan Lynch wakes up on the nineteenth day to a hangover-induced headache and the Beach Boys warbling about good vibrations on the radio. He opens his eyes to blinding sunlight snaking through the gap beneath his blinds.</p><p>Beach Boys. Headache. Sunlight.</p><p>No way. Did it work?</p><p>He picks his phone up off the night-stand, timing it. Five, ten, fifteen, seventeen minutes, and there it is, the thud at the window. <em>Chainsaw</em> at the window. Ronan lets her inside, disbelief rendering him silent. She’s back. She’s really here. And if Chainsaw is here, that must mean–</p><p>The cell phone rings in his hand. Ronan doesn’t hesitate; he picks up.</p><p>“Hey, Shitlord,” Ronan says with a cheer in his voice. “What’s the last thing you remember me saying to you?”</p><p>“That you never wanted to see me again,” Declan responds. “And I’ve been respecting that, haven’t I? But here’s the situation–”</p><p>Ronan laughs. He feels gloriously light inside, untethered. He’s okay. They’re okay. His brother and Chainsaw and everyone at the party is okay. They <em>fixed it.</em></p><p>No more loops.</p><p>“You sound happy.” Declan’s voice is pure suspicion.</p><p>“Is that a crime now?”</p><p>“You haven’t spoken to me in four months. Forgive me for assuming there’s a catch here.”</p><p>“No catch,” Ronan says. He should be pissed at Declan, for appearances sake, but he can’t muster up the energy to pretend. For a hot second back there, he’d been convinced he’d never see the poor sucker again. The memory of Declan’s corporeal form fading out of the hotel corridor while Ronan’s lungs caved in on themselves is still sharp at the forefront of his mind. He’ll gladly take a whole conversation full of Declanisms over <em>that</em> horror movie bullshit.</p><p>“What’s the joke, then?” Declan asks.</p><p>“There isn’t one. Look, you wanna meet up? I know you drove all the way up here to stalk me.”</p><p>“I’m not stalk–”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. You got a hot date too. Technicalities, man.”</p><p>“How did you–?”</p><p>“Lunch at three? You’re buying.”</p><p>“Shouldn’t we discuss–”</p><p>“Lunch. Three. You’re buying.”</p><p>Declan sighs and says, “If I’m buying, I’m also choosing the restaurant.”</p><p>Ronan ends the call, unable to keep the grin off his face. They’re in the clear now, but he didn’t suffer through endless iterations of this damn day for nothing. If he has to live through it one last time, why not go all out? Why not make everything as good as it can be?</p><p>So he grabs coffee with Noah and invites him to the party. He gets lunch with Declan at his overpriced stuffy restaurant and accepts the Barns key without an argument. He chews Gansey out for organizing this shitty party in the first place and then he helps Blue and Henry set things up regardless, and all the while he’s thinking, <em>shit damn, we’re okay</em>. Horror movie bullshit aside, Ronan is one lucky son of a bitch.</p><p>He watches a zombiefied Adam shuffle his way into Gansey’s bedroom and resolves against waking him up. Why bother? They’re out of the loop now. They’re debugged, isn’t that how Adam put it? If Doomsday’s been cancelled, then the least Adam deserves is some decent sleep.</p><p>Ronan could be doing with some decent sleep too. He recognizes, offhandedly, that this is the high before the crash, that all his shit is stacked up and waiting for him on the other side of this weekend and there’s no more outrunning it. He doesn’t <em>want</em> to run, though. He’s ready to face it. He’s ready to live.</p><p>But first things first: doesn’t he deserve to celebrate?</p><p>Henry turns his terrible playlist on, and Ronan can hardly find it in him to care. Let the fucker have his fun; the party was, quite literally, a living hell without him.</p><p>Ronan steers his way around the crowded room, mixes a vodka tonic, and heads over to Blue before Neanderthal Brad can get there first.</p><p>“Sargento,” he drawls, and holds the cup out. Blue looks him over, eyes narrowed. Her composure breaks when he starts whistling along with the music.</p><p>“For the record,” she says, retrieving the cup, “I still don’t trust this whole nice-guy act.”</p><p>“Who says it’s an act?”</p><p>“No one is this nice unless they’re up to something. Since when do you do parties?”</p><p>“Since some asshole guilt-tripped me into it.”</p><p>Blue wouldn’t be Blue if she let someone else’s pesky logic sway her off course. “Since when do you like Madonna, then?”</p><p>“Jesus Mary, Cheng’s only played that song a dozen times. It’s been stuck in my head, all right?”</p><p>“You were <em>whistling.</em> Since when do you whistle?”</p><p>“Since when are you so goddamn suspicious? You sound like Declan.”</p><p>“Ugh. Low blow.” Blue wrinkles her nose. She’s never had much tolerance for the eldest Lynch, ever since that one memorable occasion wherein he stopped by Fox Way and had a near heart attack at the sight of Blue’s cousin, Orla, in her bright orange bikini. To be fair, Orla has that effect on most straight guys. To be less fair, there’s nothing quite like watching Declan stammer through apologies after being dubbed a pervert by one five foot firecracker to get Ronan high on life. “You’re definitely acting weird, though. Be honest with me.”</p><p>“I’m always honest.”</p><p>Blue scoffs. “The worst part is I know you really believe that.”</p><p>Ronan thinks it through and then figures, well, what’s he got to lose? They’re in the clear now. He’ll probably end up telling her and the others about this ordeal sooner or later, anyway.</p><p>“Let’s just say, if you’d had the night I’ve had, you’d be feeling pretty generous right now too,” he says.</p><p>Blue appraises him over the rim of her cup. “Cryptic.” Then, shrugging, she takes a drink. The music changes from one Madonna song to the next, and she says, “Oh, hey, I like this one.”</p><p>“You see that guy over there with the blonde hair?”</p><p>“The one that looks stoned?”</p><p>“That’s Noah,” Ronan confirms. “Talk to him. He likes shitty pop music, too.”</p><p>“Oh, men in stone houses shouldn’t be throwing – Wait. That’s not right. What’s it go like?”</p><p>“Jesus God, Sargent, you’re a mess.”</p><p>“For the record,” she says, already drifting away, “You don’t get to judge when you’re always – Oh, glass houses! Men in glass houses…”</p><p>Ronan’s ready to follow her, but then his eyes catch on Adam, standing at the edge of the hallway. He abandons Blue to the fray and makes his way right over there.</p><p>“Parrish!”</p><p>Adam doesn’t look up. Probably hasn’t heard him. He’s heading in Henry’s direction, so Ronan cuts through the crowd in order to get there first. He steps into Adam’s tracks, stopping Adam short, and <em>fuck</em>. It’s only now that it hits him: they’re back in reality, the two of them, and Ronan gets to have this, and it doesn’t matter how screwed up he is or just how deep the damage goes because Adam’s seen it. He’s seen the very worst of it, and he doesn’t care. He’s got his own scars too, and he trusted Ronan enough to share them.</p><p>Ronan’s got no disillusions about who he is. He knows he’s no easy choice, that being with him necessitates handling all his sharp edges and complications. But he thinks of their last desperate kiss in the convenience store, Adam’s hands shaking as they clutched at Ronan’s head, <em>I want this, I want this</em>, and he wonders if this, in fact, might be the simplest part of his life going forward, if Adam’s complications cancel out Ronan’s own.</p><p>“Parrish, you crazy bastard,” Ronan shouts joyfully. “You actually did it!”</p><p>Ronan steps forward; Adam jumps a mile back. His eyes snap up, sharp and shrewd and filled with unmistakable disdain. It’s the same look Ronan’s used to seeing him direct at the douchebro party guests. Ronan almost forgot what it felt like, being on the receiving end of  it himself.</p><p>“I actually showed up,” Adam says, “because I was actually invited. Imagine that.”</p><p>Reality crashes into Ronan with the force of a speeding truck.</p><p>
  <em>We just need to get back inside the block, to the beginning of this night, and rewrite the code.</em>
</p><p>This isn’t his Adam. This Adam doesn’t care about Ronan at all.</p><p>This Adam’s going to die tonight, if Ronan doesn’t rewrite their past-present-future-whatever.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>-</p><p>“Dude, are you okay?”</p><p>Adam’s head hurts. He’s tired, and he’s hungry, and his body aches after standing all afternoon at work, after spending the whole morning in an intensive chem lab, after dragging himself out of a restless nightmare-fuelled sleep to the sound of his alarm buzzing four hours after he’d finished his essay and called it a night, after a whole week of school-work-study-worry-sleep, years and years of school-work-study-worry-sleep, with many more years of school-work-study-worry-sleep to look forward to.</p><p>But he knows that voice, and if he’s hearing it now then that must mean–</p><p>“It worked,” he says, and lets his head slump back against the pillow. He’s okay. It actually worked.</p><p>“Dude. You were passed out,” Drunk Girl – Nina – says. “Like, real passed out. I thought you needed CPR or something.”</p><p>Adam laughs. No more loops, no more deaths, no more creepy past selves. He’s okay. <em>They’re</em> okay. Everyone at the party is okay. They fixed it.</p><p>He sits up, rummaging around in his pockets for his useless little phone. The missed calls are still there, but Adam doesn’t hesitate this time. He goes to the call settings and blocks his parents’ landline.</p><p>There’s nothing to regret. He’s doing what he has to, cutting the rot off in order to live.</p><p>He hands the phone over to Nina, who’s still looking at him like he might be in need of desperate medical attention, or possibly just some help, period.</p><p>“Most people can never get a reception here,” he says, nodding towards the smart phone in her hand, “but mine always works.”</p><p>She glances at the flip phone with an amused quirk to her brow. “Oh my god. That thing is ancient, man.”</p><p>Adam shrugs. He can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed. Not everything’s an insult disguised as a benign question. Not everyone’s out to hurt him. Sometimes people can surprise–</p><p>Hold that thought. He’s beginning to sound like Gansey.</p><p>Adam returns to the party with Nina, who, go figure, is taking two of the same classes as him and even recognizes him as the guy from the front row of the lecture hall “who’s always prepared and shit.” And that, that stumps him. He’s always considered himself fundamentally separate from everybody else, an outsider forever damned to look in through foggy windows, but perhaps Gansey (<em>was</em> that Gansey?) was right. Perhaps it’s Adam who’s never seen things clearly.</p><p>What a lie lonesome was.</p><p>Adam bids Nina goodbye when they reach her group of friends. He scans the crowded room for Ronan, and when he doesn’t find him he heads towards Henry instead.</p><p>“Yo, Parrishman!” Henry waves, neon wristbands lighting up his entire arm.</p><p>“Shots?” Adam holds the glass out towards him, and Henry’s face lights up with unmistakable glee.</p><p>“Man after my heart,” he declares. Adam doesn’t bother to explain that his own shot glass is filled with water. He lets Henry count down, and then he drinks with enough gusto that one might think he really<em> is</em> drunk. He almost feels that way, too, filled with so much giddiness and light he might burst from it. He is achingly present in his body, unshackled from the past, future brimming with endless possibilities. Awake.</p><p>Does Ronan feel the same? Where is he right now? God, Adam needs to see him.</p><p>There’s still so much to talk about, to think about. Adam’s not naive enough to think his troubles are over after a confrontation and a blocked number. They’re always going to be with him, a weight on his shoulders he can’t shrug off. But he doesn’t have to carry them alone anymore. Ronan <em>knows,</em> and he doesn’t think less of Adam for it. That means something. It means everything.</p><p>“Here, here, you should have some,” Henry’s saying now, and Adam snaps back to attention in time to see Henry removing two of his tacky wristbands. “I like to think of them as a good luck charm.”</p><p>“You should save them for someone who needs them, then,” Adam says. “I’m running on a good luck surplus.”</p><p>“I beg to differ, my friend. You can never have too much luck.”</p><p>Adam accepts the wristbands with a roll of his eyes. He can’t complain; they make him feel like part of the party, his presence vital and wanted. <em>Good luck.</em> What more luck can Adam ask for? Not many people get second chances like this.</p><p>“Have you seen Lynch around?” he asks.</p><p>“Ah,” Henry says. “Now that <em>is </em>the question.”</p><p>“That wasn’t a yes or a no.”</p><p>“Always to the point, Parrish. I admire that about you.”</p><p>Adam’s easy smile slips ever so slightly. It’s deja vu, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the same party, after all. Of course he was likely to unlock the same dialogue scripts, sooner or later.</p><p>“Let me guess,” Adam says. “He’s in his room with Gansey?”</p><p>“Perhaps. But if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.”</p><p>Adam sets his shot glass down beside the speakers. He turns towards the hallway, ignoring Henry’s familiar warning call. He sidesteps the familiar interlocked couple on the floor. He hesitates at Ronan’s door.</p><p>Muffled voices. Then shouting, familiar shouting…</p><p>The door flies open and Ronan storms outside, and still Adam hesitates because it can’t be, <em>no</em>, he thought they were–</p><p>Ronan turns towards him, and Adam meets his gaze head-on despite every cell in his body urging him to look the other way.</p><p>Ronan Lynch is savagely handsome, even when he’s scowling at Adam like Adam’s a piece of dirt on his too expensive boots.</p><p>“The fuck you standing there for, you creepy bastard? The party’s that way.”</p><p>Just like before. Exactly like before.</p><p>“Shit,” Adam says faintly.</p><p>Ronan shoves him out the way. He shouts at the couple on the floor. Adam waits there, brain working overdrive as his body goes on standstill. The Ronan he knows isn’t here anymore. Of course he isn’t here. Adam can’t rewrite the night’s code if there’s no death to prevent in the first place.</p><p><em>No</em>. Ronan’s death.</p><p>It’s still going to happen, if Adam can’t help it.</p><p>-</p><p>“Parrish–”</p><p>“I’m not doing this with you tonight. Where’s Gansey?”</p><p>“No, wait, just–”</p><p>Adam turns on his heels, like he can barely stand to look at Ronan, and heads back the way he came.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>If Ronan chases after him, Adam’s bound to get pissed off. He’s going to jump to insane conclusions and insist Ronan’s harassing him, just like he did at Home Depot. He’s always been committed to seeing the very worst in Ronan, not that Ronan ever gave him much cause to think differently.</p><p>But that was before. Ronan’s proven himself to be<em> more</em> than that now. They’re allies, partners, friends. They’re…</p><p>They’re nothing at all. All that progress, erased.</p><p>And Ronan doesn’t have the option to walk away this time, because Ronan’s the only thing standing between Adam Parrish and permanent death.</p><p>“Adam, listen,” he says, striding to keep pace. “Whatever happens tonight, you need to stay at this party.”</p><p>“Uh huh.”</p><p>“I mean it. I don’t care if you hate me. I’ll keep the hell out your way. Just promise you won’t leave early.”</p><p>“That would suit you, huh?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You really think I’ll take orders off you if you bark loud enough?”</p><p>Ronan frowns, his mind struggling to keep up. Then it clicks. “I’m not fucking with you, man. Swear on it. If you leave tonight, something really bad is going to happen.”</p><p>“Worse than this conversation?”</p><p>“Way worse. So just hang around, all right? Go do your antisocial bastard thing in a corner somewhere.”</p><p>“Oh, go to hell, Lynch.” Adam shoves past him and makes a beeline for the center of the crowd.</p><p>“Jesus,” Ronan groans. “That wasn’t meant to be insulting!”</p><p>Too late. Adam’s already on the move. He’s shoving through the crowds with more force than usual, and Ronan doesn’t follow this time. He runs his hands over his head and wishes desperately that the Adam he <em>knows </em>was here. That Adam would know exactly what to do. He wouldn’t stoop to accidental insults. He’d have a plan and he’d follow through. Hell, he’s probably saving bodysnatched Ronan’s ass in an alternate world right this very second, leaving no stone unturned in the process.</p><p>Does that mean he’s gone from <em>this</em> world for good?</p><p>Ronan can’t think about that. He has to think about theAdam that’s here with him right now. And that Adam needs help, even if he doesn’t know it yet. That Adam is still Adam, even if Ronan’s nothing to him.</p><p>Ronan can’t give up on him now.</p><p>-</p><p>Adam gives Ronan space, because what’s the alternative? Follow him around yelling about his impending doom? If anything, that’ll <em>make</em> Ronan leave. No, the best approach is a subtle approach. No talk of loops, or deaths, or ‘sci-fi mumbo-jumbo bullshit.’ He just needs to become Ronan’s friend, and how difficult can that be? Adam’s had practice.</p><p>“Mind if I join you?”</p><p>Ronan half turns towards him, mouth set in a perfect scowl. He doesn’t say anything, just tips his head back and takes another long drink from the solo cup in his hand. They’re in the hallway outside the apartment, a safe distance from the stairs. In ten minutes’ time, Ronan will head back inside and pick a fight with Adam on the couch. Or he would, if Adam weren’t here to rewrite their past-present-future.</p><p>Ronan’s already drunk, though. Adam can’t change that part.</p><p>“Not your scene, huh?” Adam jerks his head towards the apartment door. “I don’t blame you. It’s too loud for me, too.”</p><p>“The fuck do you want?”</p><p>“To talk.”</p><p>“So you finally pulled that stick out your ass, huh.”</p><p>Adam reminds himself not to take it personally. He reminds himself that Ronan needs his help, even if he doesn’t know it yet. He reminds himself that abrasiveness is all part of Ronan’s charm.</p><p>“It’s a party,” Adam says. “Figured I owed it to everyone to lighten up.”</p><p>“Why not lighten up where they can see you?”</p><p>“What do you think I came out here for?”</p><p>Ronan scoffs. He takes another drink. The stench of booze is overwhelming, this close. Adam wants to grab the cup and toss it over the edge of the bannister, wants to yell at Ronan <em>you don’t need to do this, people care about you, dammit. </em>As if Ronan would listen to someone like him.</p><p>“Is that so hard to believe?” he says instead. “That I’d want to hang out with you?”</p><p>“Did Cheng put you up to this?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t pull this kind of favour for Cheng even if he paid me.”</p><p>“So you’re Parrish’s bodysnatched double, then.”</p><p>Adam bursts out laughing. Ronan raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“Sorry,” Adam says. “It’s just…” But how can he explain it? <em>Of course you would say that because you’re still Ronan. You’re the Ronan I know, only you don’t know me at all.</em></p><p>And just like that it hits Adam. The Ronan that knows him is gone.</p><p>“Look, man, I don’t have time for whatever the fuck this is.” Ronan crunches the cup up and tosses it to the ground. “Your douchebag friends already invaded my apartment–”</p><p>“They’re not my friends.”</p><p>“Jesus weeps. Neither am I.”</p><p>He doesn’t mean to hurt Adam. He’s only lashing out because he feels trapped himself, carelessly shooting arrows with no real expectations that one might stick. But there’s so much disdain packed into that one small sentence, and Ronan never lies. They’re <em>not </em>friends, not anymore, and it’s naive of Adam to assume he can rebuild their relationship in one night. Not when Ronan’s in this state, resistant to affection even when it’s coming from the people he’s known for years.</p><p>He tries to see it from Ronan’s perspective. To be surrounded by shiny Ivy League douchebags when you’ve lost all sense of purpose, to watch the few friends you have welcome these interlopers into your space and into their hearts, casting you aside in the process. Of course Ronan resents him. Adam, in his eyes, is representative of everything that Ronan’s failed to become.</p><p>What can Adam possibly offer him, when his mere presence is enough to bring out Ronan’s insecurities?</p><p>What choice does Adam have, though? He can’t watch Ronan die.</p><p>“We could be, if you gave it a chance,” Adam says, and he’s never begged anyone before but he’s so close to doing so now. “I’m an asshole, you’re an asshole. That’s a lot of common ground to work from, don’t you think?”</p><p>Ronan laughs darkly. He pushes himself off the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets as he steps forward. He turns around to face Adam, and Adam holds his breath for judgement. <em>Please</em>.</p><p>“Common ground?” Ronan says flatly. “Fuck me, Parrish. For a Harvard douchebag, you don’t know shit.”</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>Ronan storms off towards the elevator, and Adam watches, frozen, <em>not enough, you’re not doing enough,</em> you’re<em> not enough, </em>until the adrenaline kicks in and he rushes after him.</p><p>“Lynch, wait,” he shouts. “You can’t–”</p><p>But the elevator doors are already closing.</p><p>Adam looks at the stairs, not as imposing after the other night’s victory, but still he can’t. Even if he throws himself down them two at a time, it’ll still take too long, and then Ronan will be long gone and Adam might never catch up.</p><p>There’s only one option.</p><p>Adam presses the elevator button, waiting with bated breath as the floor numbers tick down and then back up one by one. Then the doors open, a handful of party guests climbing out. Adam hesitates, the memory of panic and screaming and loss of control still fresh and uniquely horrifying even after weeks of trauma after trauma. Enclosed in a metal death trap – he can think of no worse way to go.</p><p><em>Ronan. You’re doing this for Ronan</em>, he reminds himself, and then he steps inside.</p><p>-</p><p>Ronan drops himself down on the couch between Adam and Stoner Dude and says, “Parrish.”</p><p>Adam doesn’t so much as blink in response, which either means he’s icing Ronan out or he genuinely can’t hear him. Ronan’s always assumed it was the former, but that was before he learned about Adam’s ear.</p><p>
  <em>Parrish, are you deaf or something?</em>
</p><p>Ronan Lynch: expert at screwing up without even trying.</p><p>“Parrish,” he says again. “C’mon, man. You can’t ignore me all night.”</p><p>“Is that a challenge?”</p><p>“If it is, looks like you just failed.”</p><p>Adam doesn’t smile, which is fine. Cool. Whatever. Ronan doesn’t need him<em> happy </em>to keep him <em>safe. </em>He can work on that later.</p><p>“What is it you want, Lynch?”</p><p>Ronan hesitates before saying, “To talk.”</p><p>“To fight, you mean.”</p><p>“I said what I said.”</p><p>“And I wasn’t born yesterday. It’s never just talking with you, is it?”</p><p>He forgot it was like this, Adam’s prickly defensiveness as much a problem as Ronan’s aggressive hostility. Adam taking even the most innocuous of statements and twisting them into something insulting. Adam seeing the worst in him, always, because the worst is all Adam’s known.</p><p>Ronan had never understood that, not at the time. Someone like Adam – a whip-smart Harvard-bound success story – didn’t need to be so guarded when the world would surely shift to accommodate him, if only he asked. Now, though, Ronan understands all too well, and he feels nothing but rage on Adam’s behalf. He hates Adam’s father, and he hates Adam’s mother, and he hates every last useless bastard that watched Adam suffer without lifting a finger to help. He hates everyone that’s made Adam feel like he isn’t enough, that kindness and friendship cannot exist without condition, that he’s got to continuously prove himself in order to deserve his place in the world.</p><p>Most of all, he hates his past self for playing into Adam’s skewed self-perception.</p><p>“Look,” Ronan says, leaning forward. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re my best bet to getting through this night. Who else am I supposed to talk shit with? Gansey?”</p><p>“He’d probably give you a lecture on the inherent goodness of mankind, if you tried.”</p><p>“Exactly. I don’t have time for that sick shit.”</p><p>There it is, the briefest of smiles, a real blink and you’ll miss it number. The way to Adam’s heart is by making mean jokes at everyone else’s expense, go figure.</p><p>“You know he tried introducing me to one Richard Kensington the II earlier,” Adam says. “Future heir to an oil tycoon. Parents are well known Tea Party donors. But oh, he’s a swell guy. Give him a chance.”</p><p>“How many Richards do you think are in this room right now?”</p><p>“Depends. Does every dick qualify?”</p><p>Ronan laughs sharply. He’s good at this. It’s going to be fine. He knows Adam, even if Adam doesn’t know him, and Adam’s going to<em> live</em>.</p><p>“Fucking one percenters, right?”</p><p>“Careful. You keep talking like that, Mommy and Daddy might kick you off the trust fund.”</p><p>And just like that, Ronan’s not laughing anymore. He’s not good at this at all.</p><p><em>Don’t rise to it</em>, Ronan reminds himself, despite every dormant muscle in him raring to fight. Adam doesn’t know he’s prodding at a wound that’s not quite healed yet. How could he know?</p><p>“I might be rich as shit, but I’m not Gansey rich as shit,” Ronan says, working to keep his voice light.</p><p>Adam scoffs. His face is shuttered now, all traces of good humour gone. “That must be so hard for you,” he deadpans. “I don’t know how you cope, not being the richest bastard in a room full of rich bastards.”</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>“I’m not complaining, Jesus. But there’s a difference between five million and fifty million, right? Aren’t you science nerds supposed to care about fucking accuracy?”</p><p>“They must’ve skipped that lesson at my public school,” Adam says, and stands up.</p><p>“Oh, come on. I was kidding,” Ronan says with desperation. “You’re not leaving, are you?”</p><p>Adam doesn’t deign that with a response. He turns on his heels and walks away.</p><p>“Dude,” says Stoner Dude from his end of the couch. He’s watching Adam leave same as Ronan, and he looks just as disappointed by that fact too. “That was fucked, like.”</p><p>Ronan would tell the moron where to stick it, but Adam already got there the first time, and Ronan’s not prepared to repeat all the sins of the past. He grits his teeth and sets off in Adam’s wake. Trails him all the way to the kitchen, where Gansey’s holding court with Cheng and one other dimwit he’s collected.</p><p>“Parrish–”</p><p>“Adam, hey!” Gansey says. He stumbles towards them, grinning ear to ear.</p><p>“Hey.” Adam smiles, and it’s the phoniest thing Ronan’s ever seen. Gansey should know that, too, but Gansey is shit-faced. It’s a wonder Gansey still knows he’s Gansey. “Listen, man, this was great. I think I’m gonna call it a night, though. My head is killing me.”</p><p>“You’re not leaving,” Ronan says.</p><p>Both Adam and Gansey turn to stare at him, the former repressing rage while the latter looks plain confused.</p><p>“I don’t remember asking you,” Adam snarls.</p><p>“He’s right,” Gansey says. “You can’t leave, Adam! Henry, tell Adam he’s not allowed to leave.”</p><p>“We need you here, Parrish,” Henry says. “You’re the only sober man standing.”</p><p>“Why don’t you, do you want a drink? I’ll make you a G&amp;T. That’s what you drink, right? No, wait, that’s Spencer.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t drink.” And judging from the slight twitch of his eye, he’s upset Gansey doesn’t remember that. <em>Fuck. </em>All that progress, and the result’s the same. There’s no winning Adam over when Adam’s committed to self-sabotage, when he’s practically hunting for excuses to stay miserable, when he is outright determined to reject any help that comes his way. He’s never going to trust Ronan–</p><p>Unless Ronan proves he already did.</p><p>“I really gotta go, anyway. Just wanted to thank you for inviting me.”</p><p>How, though? What piece of Adam’s history can Ronan share that won’t send Adam running?</p><p>Adam’s already running. He’s grabbing his coat. He’s gone. Ronan can’t stall him, not when he can’t think of what to say. It has to be something small, fairly inconsequential, personal enough that he won’t have told anyone else but not so personal he thinks Ronan’s a creep.</p><p>“What was all that about?” Gansey says.</p><p>Ronan’s got it.</p><p>“Gansey, call him.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Adam! Call Adam and tell him Ronan wants to know if he got his giant Squirtle.”</p><p>“What does that–”</p><p>“Ask me later. Just call him, man. It’s important.”</p><p>Gansey might be shit-faced, but he’s innately tuned into the cries of a friend in need. He shoots Ronan a look that’s part confusion, part concern, and brings his phone out.</p><p>Ronan waits with bated breath as Gansey stutters out the question. He’s banking on a lot here – that Adam won’t have told anyone else the county fair story, that Adam’s need to solve a puzzle posed will win out over his need to get far away from this party – and he can’t hear what Adam’s saying in response, can only offer up a desperate prayer to God.<em> Please</em>.</p><p>Gansey hangs up the phone. He looks at Ronan with his brows furrowed, and he doesn’t look so drunk anymore.</p><p>“Well?” Ronan demands. “What did he say?”</p><p>“I’d like to know what you’ve dragged me into.”</p><p>“We’ll get to that. Is he coming back?”</p><p>Gansey nods. Relief surges through Ronan with the force of an electric shock.</p><p>“He’s waiting for you outside,” Gansey says. “But he sounded spooked. What’s going on, Ronan?”</p><p>“Tomorrow,” Ronan promises. “I’ll explain it all tomorrow. Just trust me, man. I know what I’m doing here.”</p><p>“I hope so,” Gansey says. “He’s a swell guy, you know.”</p><p>-</p><p>It takes two wrong turns and one frantic questioning of a stranger for Adam to find Ronan’s deli. Ronan’s deli, that he’s already walking away from. <em>Shit.</em></p><p>“Lynch!”</p><p>“Fuck you!”</p><p>Adam sprints the rest of the way down the street. It’s only once he gets closer that he realizes Ronan isn’t talking to him at all. He’s on the phone.</p><p>“–and you know what, man, there’s a reason Dad hated you. Cause you don’t–you don’t give a fuck about anyone, you…You didn’t even ask me! You didn’t ask me. You went and ruined it, like you go and ruin everything, and I hope it fucking–”</p><p>Adam snatches the phone out his hands.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Ronan slurs. “Give me that. Where’d you come from, anyway?”</p><p>Adam ends the call before handing the phone back over. Ronan looks at it blankly, like he can hardly remember what he was doing with it in the first place. The plastic bag in his hands drops to the ground, glass clinking, and when he tries to reach down for it he stumbles. Adam attempts to right him, but Ronan moves out the way and says, “Don’t touch me, man.”</p><p>“You can barely stand–”</p><p>“Why’d you do that, you fucking…I need to call –”</p><p>“You don’t.” Adam leans down and looks through the bag. There’s two litre bottles of vodka inside, both shattered by the fall. Probably for the best. “You don’t want to hurt Declan, trust me. You’ll only regret it when you wake up.”</p><p>“Maybe I won’t wake up. Fix everyone’s problems.”</p><p>Adam stares at him for a beat too long, taking in the hopelessness behind Ronan’s eyes. He might be angry at Adam and his brother and the rest of the world, but not as much as he’s angry with himself.</p><p>“Ronan,” he says gently. “You’re not a–”</p><p>Ronan walks away.</p><p>Adam quickly collects the bag and dumps it in the nearest trash can before following at a careful distance. It takes him a few minutes to figure out that Ronan’s not walking aimlessly; he’s doubling back to the apartment, taking the long route. When he stops outside Rashid’s convenience store, Adam hangs back and watches through the glass windows. He watches Ronan disappear up one aisle and reappear down another with more booze in hand, watches Rashid lift his eyes from the phone screen and say something Adam can’t hear, watches Ronan reach for his wallet with trembling hands. Watches him empty the whole damn thing, dropping a wad of notes down on the counter before walking away.</p><p>Adam pushes the door open.</p><p>“Sir? Excuse me? Sir? This is too much–”</p><p>“Take it, man, I don’t care. Buy a holiday or something.”</p><p>“I can’t accept–”</p><p>“Here, you want these too?” Ronan waves the wallet around in his free hand, bank cards flashing. Adam pulls his arm down and carefully pries the wallet from his hand.</p><p>“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you home.”</p><p>Ronan laughs. It’s a sound that leaves Adam chilled, because he knows what’s behind it. In Ronan’s eyes, the Barns is home, and the Barns is gone.</p><p>He doesn’t protest this time as Adam coaxes Ronan’s arm around his shoulders and guides them up the street, and it’s this, more than anything, that’s frightening. A Ronan that refuses to fight with him is a Ronan that’s too far gone <em>to</em> fight with him, who simply doesn’t care one way or the other what happens next. And the sudden generosity – Adam knows what it looks like when Ronan’s being kind, and it’s certainly not that. This is Ronan at his most impulsive, a Ronan that can’t picture a future for himself and no longer wants to try.</p><p>Adam will watch over him all night if he has to, but there’s only much that’ll do when Ronan’s still stuck in this despairing mindset. When he thinks he has to carry this pain alone.</p><p>“I take it the party’s still not looking appealing?” Adam says, as the apartment comes into view.</p><p>“I don’t care,” Ronan says.</p><p>“Do you have your car keys on you?”</p><p>Ronan shrugs. He rummages around in his pockets and drops both the car keys and the apartment keys into Adam’s hand.</p><p>“You can have them. Move in, take my room if you want. Gansey likes you better anyway.”</p><p>Adam frowns. He steers them towards the parking lot.</p><p>The BMW’s sat where it always is. Adam unlocks it, gets Ronan in the passenger seat, then climbs into the driver’s seat beside him. He starts the engine, but only to get the heater on; driving away won’t solve their problems.</p><p>“Fuck, my legs hurt.” Ronan yawns. He pushes the seat back as far as it will go and then stretches out. “Parrish, you crazy bastard.”</p><p>“Last I checked, I’m not the one who paid two hundreds bucks for a bottle of vodka.”</p><p>“I’m a communist now.”</p><p>“I would love to hear you explain what that means.”</p><p>“Fuck money, and having things. What do you need them for anyway? I don’t need them.”</p><p>Adam looks at Ronan, but Ronan’s not looking at him. His gaze is fixed on the window, reflection obscured in the dark.</p><p>“You don’t mean that.”</p><p>“Don’t tell me what to think,” he says. “Shouldn’t you be happy? I thought that’s why you hated me.”</p><p>“I don’t hate you.”</p><p>Ronan scoffs. He says, with pitch perfect derision, “What are you doing here, Parrish?”</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing?</em>
</p><p>Adam couldn’t answer that before, because he hadn’t known himself. He’d been trapped in this labyrinth long before the timeloops started, so blinded by his own insecurities and skewed self-perception that his death was all but guaranteed. But he knows the way out now, and he knows his purpose here is to be the thread leading Ronan out too.</p><p>He says, “<em>Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli.</em>”</p><p>No response. For a second Adam worries he’s miscalculated, that Ronan won’t understand the words in his current drunken state. But then Ronan says, “Ovid?”</p><p>“From the Tristia, yeah.”</p><p>“Pretentious bastard.”</p><p>“You recognized it. What does that make you?”</p><p>“I got dragged through private school. No shit I recognized it.”</p><p>Adam waits, patiently, for the façade to break. He waits, and he prays, and after a moment’s pause his pleas are answered; Ronan grumbles, “Never cared about any of the personal stuff. I preferred–”</p><p>“Metamorphoses?”</p><p>Ronan’s head snaps around. “How’d you know that?”</p><p><em>Because I know you, </em>Adam thinks, and feels the sudden urge to mourn all that’s been lost, every loaded glance, every secret shared, that mutual understanding that Adam had never realized he craved so fiercely until he woke up to discover it was gone.</p><p>This isn’t about him, though, so he lets go of his wretched self-pity and says, “Lucky guess. It’s my favourite, too.”</p><p>“Huh.” Ronan leans back in his seat, relaxing now. His gaze is tired yet pensive as he watches Adam. Studies him. Adam can see the gears turning in Ronan’s head as he works through the drunken, sleepy haze to re-evaluate what he knows about the man sat before him.</p><p>“<em>Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli,</em>” he repeats with a wry smile. “Because he was exiled?”</p><p>“Right, yeah. He lost everything when they banished him from Rome. His place in society, his purpose, the audience for his work. He felt at odds with the people of Tomis, who didn’t understand him in his native tongue. He was cast out, alone and misunderstood.”</p><p>“And he never went back home.”</p><p>“No,” Adam says, “but he never stopped writing, either. He never faded into obscurity. And maybe they didn’t understand him then, but we do now. I learned how to.”</p><p>There’s a heaviness to Ronan’s gaze now that Adam refuses to shy away from. He wants to be seen, needs Ronan to know that he is seen in return. That he is loved.</p><p>“You’re full of surprises, Parrish,” Ronan says, and Adam smiles sadly.</p><p>“Give it time, you’ll figure me out.”</p><p>-</p><p>“All right, you got your way. I’m here. Explain it.”</p><p>Ronan takes in Adam’s defensive posture – arms crossed, shoulders tensed, face guarded and wiped clean of all emotion – and worries he’s miscalculated. They’re too exposed out here on the street, so close to the road. If Adam walks away now, it’s game over.</p><p>So Ronan can’t let him go.</p><p>“The country fair,” he says. “You wanted to win the giant Squirtle.”</p><p>“I didn’t tell Gansey about that.”</p><p>“You told me.”</p><p>“Someone did, clearly,” Adam says. “If you hunted down the kids I went to grade school with just to dig up some dirt on me, that says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me, you realize that?”</p><p>“I didn’t hunt anyone down, I – Wait!” Ronan shouts as Adam steps back. “I’ll explain. I swear I’ll explain, but you gotta hear me out till the very end, okay?”</p><p>Adam narrows his eyes. Ronan holds his breath and prays.</p><p>“Fine,” Adam sighs. “You get five minutes.”</p><p>Five minutes. Okay. He can save Adam’s life in five minutes.</p><p>“All right,” Ronan says. Where to start, where to start? Not the beginning, there’s not enough time for that. Just the highlights reel, then. Focus on the relevant parts. “We’re…Fuck, I know this sounds like a really bad pickup line, but the two of us are connected.”</p><p>“Connected how?”</p><p>“Through the laws of timespace mumbo-jumbo fuckery. I’d sum up the physics behind it, but that’s your forte, Einstein.”</p><p>Adam stares at him flatly. Right, back to the point.</p><p>“We’ve been through this night many, many times,” Ronan explains. “You wake up at the party, you die at the end. We always die at the end, because we were supposed to help each other the first time and we didn’t. You got hit by a car. I jumped–” But Adam’s face is shuttering; he’s losing to Adam’s natural scepticism.</p><p>“Look, I know I sound fucking crazy, but I can prove it! The county fair – you wanted to ride the tilt-a-whirl but you spent all your tokens hooking ducks. You wouldn’t give in ‘cause you’re a stubborn son of a bitch and you wanted to prove yourself. Because everything you do is about proving yourself.”</p><p>Adam’s neutral expression falters, and for a brief moment Ronan sees nothing but naked horror.</p><p>“What is this?” he says. “How do you…This isn’t funny.”</p><p>“Adam, I know you.”</p><p>“No you–”</p><p>“I <em>know you</em>,” Ronan insists. “I know you think everyone at that party’s got it figured out except you. I know you’ve got a real massive inferiority complex, never mind you’re the smartest bastard I’ve ever met. I know your phone’s been ringing the whole night and the assholes on the other line don’t deserve to talk to you. I know you still think you owe it to them to <em>let</em> them talk to you, but you don’t, okay? You fucking don’t.”</p><p>Adam sucks in a sharp breath. He raises a trembling hand to his mouth, freezing halfway there. He’s beyond spooked now; he looks downright terrified, and Ronan hates that he’s the cause of it. This isn’t how he wanted this to go at all, but it’s what Adam needs to hear. Someone needs to say it to him, and that someone has got to be Ronan. That’s what Ronan’s here for, after all; he is Adam’s very own Ariadne’s thread, here to lead him out of the labyrinth. In another world, he can only hope the Adam that knows him is doing the same thing for him.</p><p>“I know you deserve so much better than them,” Ronan continues. “You deserve better, period. And you can have that, if you come back to the goddamn party with me.”</p><p>Adam shakes his head. His eyes are filled with unshed tears. It’s possible that Ronan is the first person to ever tell Adam this, and the injustice of that burns Ronan up with a rage so potent he might never go cold again. Curse everyone who failed Adam, who let his suffering go uncommented on because it was inconvenient. Adam deserves so much more; Adam deserves the world, and Ronan would give it to him.</p><p>Ronan loves him.</p><p>“I don’t…” Adam wipes at his face. He takes a step back. “I can’t deal with this right now.” And then he’s turning around and walking out of Ronan’s life.</p><p>“Adam–”</p><p>Adam takes a thoughtless step onto the road, and Ronan sees red. There’s no time to think, only time to react. Ronan sprints.</p><p>He hears the revving of the engine before he sees it. Then blinding lights come into focus and a horn blares in warning. <em>Don’t think, don’t think</em>. Ronan reaches Adam, gets his arms around Adam’s waist and hauls them both back.</p><p>The car speeds past, blowing wind in their faces. They’re millimetres away from the road, the toes of Adam’s worn sneakers hanging over the edge of the kerb. One more step, and he’d have been hit.</p><p>But he wasn’t. He’s safe now, a solid, shaking presence in Ronan’s arms. His heart’s pounding so hard that Ronan can feel it from where his hands are splayed, Adam’s whole chest quaking with it.</p><p>“You saved me,” Adam says, sounding scandalized.</p><p>“No shit.”</p><p>“Why would you do that?”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I do that? Do I look like Satan to you?”</p><p>“A little bit. He was known for being beautiful.”</p><p>“I saved your ass and now you’re flirting with me. Is that really all it takes?”</p><p>“Fuck,” Adam says weakly. His shoulders shake, shock wearing off, and he sags in Ronan’s arms.</p><p>“Hey, you’re okay now.” Ronan turns Adam around and pulls him into a fierce hug, holding him as tightly as he’s wished to since this awful night began. Adam doesn’t hug back, doesn’t move his arms at all, but he drops his head against Ronan’s shoulder and goes limp, standing only because Ronan won’t allow him to sink.</p><p>“<em>Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit,</em>” he says into Adam’s hearing ear.</p><p>“You asshole,” Adam gasps, and Ronan feels it when Adam finally begins to cry.</p><p>-</p><p>Adam wakes up with a crick in his neck and no recollection of having fallen asleep. He looks around, disoriented. He’s still in the driver’s seat of Ronan’s BMW, but the engine’s switched itself off. Everything is pitch black, the only light source a street lamp at the bottom of the parking lot.</p><p>And Ronan’s not here.</p><p><em>No</em>.</p><p>Adam throws the car door open and stumbles onto the gravel. He sprints towards the back door of the apartment complex, but he can’t get in. He doesn’t have keys. Shit! He doesn’t know what time it is, or what day, even. Is it after midnight? Is the party still going? Doesn’t matter. He has to try.</p><p>He doubles round to the front of the building. Presses Gansey’s buzzer again and again, breaths quickening, body tensed for that fatal blow, till someone lets him inside. He takes the elevator to the top floor, takes the stairs to the roof, shoves the door open and freezes. He can’t see Ronan, but that doesn’t mean – He can’t have–</p><p>“You stupid bastard,” Adam says, voice breaking. He sucks in a shaky breath, holding tightly to his last dregs on control. Not yet. He’s got to keep it together, got to know for sure.</p><p>He crosses the rooftop slowly and grips the railing so hard his veins pop out. It’s such a long way down. There’s no surviving a jump like this. But if Ronan’s…Adam can’t think about it…Adam has to see.</p><p>He blinks the tears out of his eyes, ignores the scream building up in his throat, says up a desperate prayer to a God he can only hope is benevolent to non-believers, and then he looks down.</p><p>There’s nothing there.</p><p>No one else could’ve got to him first – there’d be cops. Forensics. Adam would’ve <em>seen </em>on his way upstairs. If Ronan’s not here, that must mean…But Adam can’t hope…</p><p>“How’d you find me?”</p><p>Adam spins around. Ronan is right there at the other end of the roof, black clothes blending in with the night, and he’s <em>alive</em>.</p><p>Adam tries to speak, but all that comes out is a broken sob. Ronan’s okay. He’s okay.</p><p>“Parrish?” He’s looking at Adam like Adam’s grown a second head, but that’s okay, too.</p><p>“I thought you were dead,” he says.</p><p>“I thought so too,” says Ronan. He crosses the rooftop until he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with Adam. His eyes have lost their drunken sheen; he looks more sober than Adam’s ever seen him, haunted by a past that he hasn’t been forced to reckon with yet. Adam would hug him, if he thought Ronan would allow that. Instead he moves his hand along the railing, closing the space between his pinky and Ronan’s, grounding Ronan the way Ronan grounded him.</p><p>“I still don’t get why you’re here. Why you’ve been following me all night.”</p><p>“I’m not about to watch you kill yourself.”</p><p>“Why would it matter to you? You don’t even like me.”</p><p>“Only because I didn’t know you,” Adam says. “I didn’t try to.”</p><p>“And now you do, huh?” Ronan scoffs. “You’re just a regular Florence Nightingale all of a sudden.”</p><p>“It’s hard to explain.”</p><p>“I’m literally on the edge here, Parrish. Try me.”</p><p>How does Adam sum it up, though? The science behind their connection isn’t going to interest Ronan. Going into detail about the loops will only throw Ronan for a loop himself. It’s always been more than that, anyway, hasn’t it? The two of them, bound not just by one unnatural phenomenon but by something much deeper. Mirror selves.</p><p>“I told you before,” Adam says. “We’ve got a lot of common ground to work from.”</p><p>It hadn’t landed at the apartment, but he watches it land now. Ronan is looking at him through new wary eyes. Adam doesn’t want him to be freaked out, though. He sifts through his brain for a better explanation.</p><p>“You like coming up to the roof to get away from everything. You hate the city because it’s loud and busy and lonely. You think you’re alone out here. I used to think that too.” When Ronan doesn’t respond, Adam says, “You told me that once.”</p><p>“When?”</p><p>“In another world.”</p><p>“What the fuck,” Ronan whispers.</p><p>“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you if you come back downstairs.”</p><p>Ronan shakes his head. The wariness is gone, and in its place is naked terror. He turns away from Adam, his gaze drifting to the city skyline beyond them. “You ever think about throwing yourself off a roof?”</p><p>“I’ve got different methods for ruining my life.”</p><p>Ronan smiles then, as real and beautiful as it is ephemeral. He exhales, breath coming out in a vapour cloud, and rocks back on the balls of his feet.</p><p>“If I don’t jump,” he says, voice thick with unshed tears, “do you think I’ll be happy?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Adam admits, because he owes it to Ronan to be honest. “If I was Gansey I’d say sure, happiness is a choice. But I still don’t buy into that.”</p><p>“So you think I should stick around and be miserable.”</p><p>Adam’s heart breaks. Curse this world for making Ronan feel like he has no place here, like he’ll never belong, like he is destined to live out his life in wretched exile if he chooses to stick around. Curse his past self for failing to see the beauty of this man before him, for allowing Ronan to believe he was suffering alone. Ronan deserves so much more, and Adam can help him see that now.</p><p>He loves him.</p><p>“I think you owe it to yourself to stick around and put the work in not to be miserable,” Adam says. “And if you do that, I promise you won’t be doing it alone.”</p><p>Ronan doesn’t respond for a long while. Adam waits him out, because they’ve got time now. They have all the time in the world to be patient, to listen, to support. It’s not going to be easy, adjusting to this new world where he can’t sleepwalk through life anymore, where he’s actually got to put the effort in to live. Adam’s ready to, though; he just hopes he doesn’t have to do it all on his own.</p><p>Finally, Ronan sighs and steps away from the rooftop’s edge.</p><p>“Fuck this,” he says. He turns to Adam, tears falling, and says, “Can we get the fuck down from here?”</p><p>Adam holds his hand out; Ronan ignores it, burying his head in Adam’s shoulder instead.</p><p>-</p><p>Adam leads Ronan downstairs to the party.</p><p>Ronan leads Adam upstairs to the party.</p><p>Their friends are waiting for them, drunk and oblivious and happy, so, so, happy. They are dancing in the center of the room, sprawled out on the couch, telling stories with dramatic flair to an inebriated audience, tragedy the last thing on their minds.</p><p>Adam and Ronan join them, tragedy fresh on their minds. It’s not as prominent as relief, though. They might not be happy but they’re not alive, and that counts for something.</p><p>They’re not alone, and that counts for a hell of a lot more.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>latin translations:<br/>Barbarus hic ego sum, qui non intellegor ulli = I am a barbarian here, for no one understands me<br/>Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit = perhaps someday we will look back upon these things with joy (borrowed from the raven king, obviously)</p><p> </p><p>I'm on tumblr at <a href="https://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com/"> punchupatawedding </a> if anyone wants to chat. My askbox is always open. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mornings are the hardest. Waking up tired, knowing there’s more of that terrible sameness ahead of him, long, dreary hours upon hours of terrible sameness, and what can he do about it? Why do anything at all?</p><p>Some days, Ronan doesn’t.</p><p>Most days, though, he makes the effort.</p><p>He allows himself the brief pleasure of being miserable while he’s halfway between wakefulness and sleep, and then he crawls out of bed and puts the work in to build something better. He owes it to himself to try — that’s what Adam said.</p><p>Adam, true to his word, is always here now, caring about Ronan on the days when Ronan doesn’t care about himself. His presence is never imposing. He never moralizes, or lectures, or instructs Ronan on how best to live his life. He listens, mostly. Sometimes he speaks. He’s got his own scars, his own damage, and he says he’s working on that. Harvard offers free counselling sessions to all its students, and Adam’s making the most of them before the semester ends. He says it’s helping him makes sense of the tangled mess in his head.</p><p>Ronan’s not ready to lay all his shit bare to some over-educated fuck that’s getting paid by the hour to listen to him, but he’s found other methods that help, like running. On days when the insomnia kicks in and he finds himself edgy and restless and on the verge of succumbing to his vices, he gets up and hits the park. He runs laps around the lake till his legs feel numb, till there’s nothing left in his head beyond thoughts of putting one foot in front of the other. It’s grounding, all that fresh air and adrenaline, a stark reminder that he’s still here, still breathing, blood pumping through his veins. The universe sent him a lifeline, and it’d be a damn shame now if he were to throw it away.</p><p>Gansey helps too, his love for Ronan unconditional (and often overbearing). They talk a lot more now than they did Before. They hit the gym on days when Ronan’s feeling up to it and they lounge around at the apartment on the days when Ronan’s not, bouncing ideas for Gansey’s thesis back and forth, and on the days when the nausea kicks in and Ronan’s body cries out for a drink, Gansey’s always there to provide a reminder of why the hell Ronan’s putting himself through this.</p><p>He doesn’t quit cold turkey, but he sets himself targets. No drinking at weekends. No drinking between midnight and noon. No drinking outside the apartment. No drinking alone. It’s not full-proof, but Gansey likes to say there’s no such thing as a setback — anything he does now is still a hell of an improvement over what he was doing Before.</p><p><em>Before</em>. It helps to think of it that way, to visualize himself on the slow incline from some dreadful peak. The Ronan of Before is a different breed of bastard from the Ronan of After. The Ronan of Before never would’ve made a habit out of texting Blue, for instance. He never would’ve counted Henry as a friend. He never would’ve done his research and found a new church to attend each Sunday.</p><p>He <em>definitely </em>never would’ve given Declan the time of day, but two weeks after Freaky Friday, Ronan does just that.</p><p>They meet up at Declan’s townhouse apartment the following weekend and drive to the Barns with Matthew in tow (“I think I oughtta control the aux, since the two of you ruined Christmas”) and they fight over what to do with Mom and Dad’s shit (“You want to <em>sell </em>Mom’s glass collection?” “You want to leave them to rot in storage?”) and they fight even more when Ronan finds his room ransacked and his PS4 mysteriously absent (“Oh, don’t start. It’s been collecting dust for months”) but no noses are broken, so Ronan’s willing to count the day as a success.</p><p>Small victories. Ronan will take them where he finds them.</p><p>-</p><p>Of course, he’s done all of this before.</p><p>In Adam’s stories, Ronan tackled all his demons in time to help Adam tackle his. They died together, day after day, until they learned enough to help their unenlightened selves too.</p><p>“Fuck, man. That is some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo bullshit,” Ronan said, when Adam explained their dramatic history. “You sure you weren’t tripping balls the whole time?”</p><p>And Adam stunned Ronan with the force of one of his rare, marvelous smiles, and Ronan knew he was done for.</p><p>Adam Parrish is so much more than Ronan ever could’ve dared to ask for, whip-smart and funny and so goddamn beautiful it’s distracting. He’s also an unrepentant shithead, but Ronan knew that already; it was Adam’s single saving grace Before.</p><p>They hang out with Gansey and Henry and talk shit whole time, balancing the scales when all that energetic optimism threatens to get overwhelming. They explore the city and beyond, because it turns out neither of them has seen much of what Massachusetts has to offer. They drive around aimlessly at night, arguing over music, laughing at everything and nothing, basking in the comfortable silences in between, and when Adam inevitably falls asleep in the passenger seat, Ronan fights the urge to trace patterns across that strange, glorious face.</p><p>His feelings for Adam are a forest fire, smoldering through him, impossible to contain. He’s not sure he <em>wants</em> to contain them anymore, not when every new day brings him further and further away from the Ronan of Before. He could be a good thing for Adam, if he tried. They could be good for each other.</p><p>But both their lives are complicated enough without the added strain of a relationship. Ronan’s learning how to be a functional human person again; Adam, in his own words, never learned that process to begin with.</p><p>So Ronan waits.</p><p>He wonders, often, how things were with the other Ronan, if Adam ever stared at that Ronan the way he stares at him. More and more often Ronan finds himself on the receiving end of weird looks that conclude with, “The other Ronan said that, too,” or, “You told me about this before, you know,” and he says nothing at all, just nods along, because anything that’s bound to come out will be tinged with envy or, worse, sadness.</p><p>He has no reason to feel broken up about it; him and the other Ronan are one in the same, same memories and fears, same minds and souls, separated only by the thinnest film of time. It’s only natural that they’d have all the same stories to share.</p><p>He wonders if their experiences could be layered one over the other with minimal divergence. What would the complete picture look like? Where would that leave Adam and him? Where things with the other Ronan left off?</p><p><em>“We’re friends</em>,” Adam told him the same night he saved him. “<em>He had my back, I’ve got yours.”</em></p><p>To be friends with Adam Parrish is enough. It’s more than enough.</p><p>But still. In his spare time, Ronan wonders.</p><p>-</p><p>It’s mid-May when Ronan finally caves into popular demand and attends the support group.</p><p>He doesn’t mean to go looking for one, but one Sunday he finds himself talking with one of the regulars at church, Karla, who lets slip about the bereavement group she runs out of the basement. And maybe it’s a sign from the Big Guy, who possibly hasn’t abandoned Ronan after all, or maybe it’s just dumb fucking luck, but either way, Ronan shuffles down there the following Tuesday night.</p><p>It’s not as bad as he was expecting. There’s no sitting in a circle holding hands, no reciting Hail Marys after each new person shares their story. There’s no expectation to speak at all, in fact, so mostly Ronan listens. He hears of family members lost to cancer, suicide, drug overdose. One woman, Chantelle, lost both her sons within eleven days of each other. Andy, a pot-bellied, perpetually smiling man with a booming laugh, woke up six months prior to find his wife passed away in her sleep. Karla, herself a practiced grief recovery specialist, found her world upended eight years back when her whole family were involved in a boating accident. Helping others in similar situations is how she helps herself.</p><p>It shouldn’t help, listening to other people’s pain, but when Ronan finds himself returning for the third week in a row he admits to himself it’s because it<em> is</em> helping. Because there’s some comfort in hearing his own fucked-up feelings expressed by a roomful of strangers, in knowing he’s not the only one who’s found himself adrift in the wake of loss. Hell, these are grown-ass adults with careers and mortgages and 401Ks under their belts; if they can admit to feeling hopeless and suicidal and lacking the motivation to get up in the mornings without shame, well, so can he. If they can do something about it, he can too.</p><p>So Ronan goes back each Tuesday. They tell him grief can never be eradicated — it ebbs and flows like the tide, settling on good days, sweeping you away on your worst — but it can be handled, if you attune yourself to its patterns. Sharing the load is a solid place to start.</p><p>-</p><p>“We should do something. To celebrate.”</p><p>Ronan looks up from the TV to find Adam watching him with an expectant look. Finals are officially over, and both Gansey and Henry have hastily abandoned the state for greater things. For Henry, it’s visiting his family in Vancouver. For Gansey, it’s heading to VSU to pick up Blue before checking in at 300 Fox Way for the week.</p><p>Adam’s got no family to speak of, and Ronan’s got another month to go before his brothers show up here to harass him, so the two of them are all on their own for the next few weeks, at least. The prospect is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.</p><p>“The fuck are we celebrating?” Ronan asks. “You tying the knot with Cheng?”</p><p>Adam rolls his eyes. He officially moved from the dorms into the spare bedroom at Henry and Henry Broadway’s place last weekend, after a failed apartment search and weeks of needling on Cheng<em> and</em> Gansey’s part.</p><p>“The semester’s over, for starters,” Adam says. “No more finals.”</p><p>“Speak for yourself, fucker. I’ve got finals scheduled every day for months.”</p><p>He scoffs, but he doesn’t look annoyed. There’s a glint to his eyes that Ronan can’t quite categorize. Amusement, possibly. Excitement?</p><p>“Look, it’s nice outside. You don’t wanna sit around up here all day, do you?”</p><p>Ronan had been intending to do exactly that, but if Adam’s got something planned then he’s hardly about to refuse. “What did you have in mind?”</p><p>Ronan drives; Adam, using the maps app on Ronan’s phone, shouts out vague directions that lead them onto the I-90 going west. He puts his moody 90s alt-rock on, too, but Ronan allows it this time without complaint. It settles something inside him, seeing Adam like this — eyes bright, elbow hooked outside the window, humming along to music that’s better suited for deathbed listening than early summer singalongs. There’s a lightness to him that wasn’t there before, and Ronan longs to keep it that way.</p><p>They keep going for another couple hours, driving so far west that Ronan wonders if the plan is to cross right over into New York. But then Adam changes gears and gets them heading north instead, merging onto Route 7.</p><p>“Jesus shitting Mary,” Ronan says, as the road keeps going with no end point in sight. “Be honest. How long have we been lost for?”</p><p>“We’re not lost. I wouldn’t get us lost.”</p><p>“Famous last words of every asshole that doesn’t wanna admit they’re lost.”</p><p>“Your lack of faith in me is astounding.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, <em>Gansey</em>. Now are you gonna tell me where we’re heading or what?”</p><p>Adam shakes his head, coy smile on his face. “You’ll see.”</p><p>“You’ve been saying that for nearly three hours, man. I don’t see shit except trees.”</p><p>The coy smile morphs into a shit-eating grin. Ronan turns both eyes back to the road, before his desire to stare sends them crashing into a ditch. Wouldn’t be the first time, apparently.</p><p>“Look, it’ll be worth it,” Adam says. “Trust me.”</p><p>Truth be told, it’s already worth it. Ronan’s at his best behind the wheel, no gridlock, no crowds, just miles and miles of country road ahead of him. He can breathe without existential dread weighing him down, the pressure to <em>be more</em> temporarily lifted. Out here, being Ronan is enough.</p><p>So Ronan settles in for the ride. They pass by country homes and open fields, cow pastures and horse farms, the long red barns sparking memories of home. The pain isn’t so acute now — it’s a dull ache in his chest, there then gone before he has time to linger in it.</p><p>Minutes later, Ronan sees the sign revealing their destination: Mt. Greylock State Reservation. The name rings a bell, but he’s never been before. He glances at Adam from the corner of his eye, brow raised.</p><p>“It’s no Skyline Drive, but I figured…”</p><p>Right. The woods have a different feel to them — more spruce trees and lanky, twisting birches rather than the red oaks he’s used to — but it feels familiar nonetheless, the closest approximation to home they’re likely to find this far north.</p><p>“The drive to the summit should take around fifteen minutes,” Adam says, looking almost rueful now. “I packed some stuff we could eat. Figured we could park the car, take a look around…If you wanted to, I mean.”</p><p>Adam planned this whole thing out, fuck. He found the best way to make Ronan feel at home, because he <em>knows </em>Ronan. He knows more than Ronan’s ever outright told him, understands Ronan better than Ronan sometimes understands himself.</p><p>“Sounds good,” Ronan says, aiming for casual and missing by a mile.</p><p>“Great.” Adam fails at casual too, so at least they’re even.</p><p>They follow the twisting road up the mountain, flanked by trees on both ends, everything disarmingly bright and green and alive. When he chances a look at Adam, he finds Adam already looking back. The silence between them charges with possibilities.</p><p>At the summit, they split the money for the parking toll and find a quiet spot overlooking the edge of the mountain. Adam brings along a cooler bag he must’ve hidden in the trunk when Ronan wasn’t watching. He unfolds a towel he’s packed neatly inside and then sets the food — fruit and sandwiches and an assortment of snacks — out on top with careful precision. That’s who Adam is at the core — a balancing act between caution and impulse, the type who’ll spring a mountain getaway trip on Ronan out of nowhere but only after accounting for the practicalities and each step they’ll take on the way.</p><p>Adam knows Ronan, but Ronan knows Adam, too.</p><p>Ronan bites into a chocolate s’more and says, “You know, one time Gansey ate so many of these things it made him—”</p><p>“Barf over Blue’s lap, right,” Adam finishes.</p><p>“Fuck off. He told you about that?” Ronan figured he’d be too ashamed; anyone ought to be, after writing that much shitty poetry in one go.</p><p>“Ah, no. Not exactly.”</p><p>“I told you,” he concludes.</p><p>“Just the highlights reel. We never got past the sunflower poem.”</p><p>It would’ve bothered Ronan a few months back, when the threads tethering him to Adam still felt tenuous, but it doesn’t anymore. Maybe because it’s been a damn good day and he’s not about to let anyone, even his other self, ruin it, or maybe because he’s finally making progress, becoming a version of himself that’s better than all the ones that came before. Whatever the case, the knowledge bounces right off him without leaving a mark.</p><p>So he fills Adam in on the rest of the story, all the other painstakingly earnest yet humiliating poems that compared Blue to platypuses and pygmy tyrants, and he watches as Adam laughs so hard his eyes well up with tears. Warmth burrows in Ronan’s gut and makes a home there. He feels weightless all of a sudden, giddy. He doesn’t want it to end.</p><p>He stands up and peers over the edge of the mountaintop. He can see nothing but trees for miles, an endless expanse of forest to be conquered on feet during hot summer days. He can come out here on his own and sketch from the vantage points they passed by on the drive up. He can bring Gansey out here and watch him fawn over the historical plaques and memorial tower. They can hike the trails together with Blue and Henry, recreating their Henrietta adventures with Adam in tow, too.</p><p>“It made me think of Cabeswater,” Adam says, now standing beside him. “When I first saw it. Is that weird? I looked up the pictures online, and all I could think about was that forest of yours.”</p><p>Cut to the point, and it becomes<em> all I could think about was you.</em></p><p>“I haven’t painted in a while,” Ronan says.</p><p>“You’ve been sketching, though.”</p><p>That’s a recent development, one he’s still adjusting to. His work’s rough, years of wasted potential having left its mark. He’s got more than enough time to practice, though. He brought the Cabeswater canvases home from the Barns, and waking up to them each day is plenty fuel for creative output.</p><p>“You been keeping tabs on me, Parrish?”</p><p>Adam shrugs. “I notice things.”</p><p>Make an adjustment, and now it’s<em> I notice you</em>.</p><p>Their hands brush. Ronan twists their pinkies together on impulse and is hit with the sudden, overwhelming sense of déjà vu. He’s been here before, of course he has. Falling in love with Adam Parrish is an inevitability in any timeline.</p><p>“You know,” Adam says, “I used to think Gansey was naive for saying happiness doesn’t need to be complicated.”</p><p>“I can’t tell if it’s more naivety than it is willful ignorance.”</p><p>Adam smiles, but says, “I don’t know anymore. I’m starting to think he’s got a point. ”</p><p>“Unrealistic. I expected more than hopeless optimism from you, shithead.”</p><p>Adam laughs for real, then, and Ronan grins in turn. The world feels enormous up here, thousands of feet above ground, with Massachusetts and Vermont stretching out in the distance. He never wants to come back down, not when Adam and happiness and Adam’s happiness are all finally right here within reach.</p><p>All the bubbling feelings inside him coalesce into one solid sensation that fills him close to bursting point.</p><p>He is so tremendously glad he never jumped.</p><p>It’s a realization he’s been drawing closer to for months now, one he could never quite say with total honesty before. Even now it shocks him. He knows that this, too, will ebb and flow just like grief, never constant, at least not for now. But it’s <em>something.</em> A solid place to start.</p><p>Small victories. Ronan will take them where he finds them.</p><p>“Oh,” Adam says.</p><p>Ronan’s about to ask what’s wrong, but then he feels it too — the subtle shift in his perceptions.</p><p>He sees himself pulling Adam back from the road. He sees himself holding Adam together the way Adam held him. He sees diner conversations and rooftop hangouts and one failed experiment with weed. He sees himself kissing Adam in his childhood home, sleeping together on the couch. He sees the exact moment he looked at Adam in a new light and realized he was done for.</p><p>He brought Adam to the party after saving his life, helped him readjust to life on the other side of tragedy, showed him that things didn’t have to be just like Before, so long as he made the promise to himself to try for more each morning.</p><p>He made an effort in his life, too. Took up running, tackled the gym, found a support group. And when he woke up this morning with a sense of rightness flowing through his bones, he took the jump and brought Adam out here with him. Figured he’d like it, that he’d react the same way as he had to the woods in Ronan’s paintings. He wasn’t wrong; he <em>knows </em>Adam, after all. He understands Adam better than Adam sometimes understands himself.</p><p>This is what it is: worlds converging, timespace realigning.</p><p>This is what it is: Ronan having Adam’s back, just like Adam’s had his.</p><p>This is what it is: two lost souls, making their way out the labyrinth at last.</p><p>Adam looks up at him, and all those possibilities between them become certainties they’ve lived through before and will live through again.</p><p>“You remember?” he asks.</p><p>What the hell has Ronan been waiting for? What is there to lose? The future starts now.</p><p>“<em>Omnia mutantur, nihil interit</em><em>,</em>” Ronan says, and then he closes the rest of the distance, bringing Adam’s lips to his.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Can't believe this is finished, WOW. I'm not used to finishing things this lengthy.</p><p>Thank you so much to everyone who's read this far! I really wasn't expecting to get anywhere near this level of support, and I'm so grateful for every one of you who's commented or left kudos or bookmarked or subscribed. You guys are the absolute best and you made my lockdown experience way brighter than I thought it would be.</p><p>I'd love to hear what you think about the ending, and if you're on tumblr you can always come talk to me over there - I'm at <a href="https://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com/"> punchupatawedding</a> &lt;3</p>
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